The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 64 - President Trump Brilliantly Calls Pelosi's Bluff. Fighting Back Against Election Interference. China is the True Threat.

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz. Let's talk about the news. The news

00:00:21.800 over the weekend dominated by President Trump's executive orders. Take a listen to the president.

00:00:28.180 Therefore, I'm taking executive action. We've had it. And we're going to save American jobs

00:00:34.360 and provide relief to the American workers. And I'll be signing these bills in a very short

00:00:39.720 period of time. First one is I'm providing a payroll tax holiday to Americans earning

00:00:45.620 less than $100,000 per year. In a few moments, I will sign. Second, I'm signing an executive

00:00:52.500 order directing the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HHS and CDC to make

00:00:58.720 sure renters and homeowners can stay in their homes. The third action I'm taking today will

00:01:04.220 also provide additional support for Americans who are unemployed due to the China virus.

00:01:10.940 Fourth, I'm signing a directive providing relief to student loan borrowers. Earlier this year,

00:01:16.820 we slashed student loan interest rates to zero. I don't know if people know that because the

00:01:20.840 press doesn't ever report it, but maybe they're watching now. The press doesn't report a lot

00:01:26.340 of good things that are good for the people and good for the country.

00:01:29.460 You will hear Democrats this week crying their alligator tears about executive orders and the

00:01:36.680 need to constrain the powers of the president. But you didn't hear that during the Obama administration.

00:01:43.560 There are no Democrats that are offended by executive orders. I mean, Obama used executive orders to

00:01:50.040 extend amnesty to illegal aliens. That was the DACA decision that the Obama administration made.

00:01:57.700 And during the campaign, you heard Democrat candidates for president talking about using the power of the

00:02:04.600 executive to seize the firearms of law-abiding gun owners. And they were met with enthusiasm and support

00:02:12.660 and just gushing from the Democratic base when they talked about using executive powers in this

00:02:18.000 fashion. But when president Trump uses the power of the executive to provide for the American people,

00:02:25.260 to meet the needs of our fellow countrymen and women, oh, well, that is just beyond the pale for

00:02:31.860 Democrats. Look at the issues that president Trump is addressing. Evictions, unemployment, so that people

00:02:39.120 can bridge their way back to work. But like if your job is illegal, that's not possible. So there has to

00:02:45.260 be some provision for those folks. And I think also critically important is the forbearance of additional

00:02:53.680 interest on student loans. Young people have been hit very hard by this virus when you look at the impact

00:03:00.520 on schooling, learning, the economy, entry-level jobs, internships. So that forbearance of that student loan

00:03:07.320 interest, critically important. And what the president's done is really exposed the failure of the

00:03:14.400 Congress. Look, there's not disagreement on the eviction issue or the student loan issue. I think

00:03:20.700 we all agree that there has to be some bridge for people on unemployment, but the Democrats won't put

00:03:26.640 those bills, those ideas, those issues up for an independent vote. Oh no, they've got to create these

00:03:33.180 massive expansions of additional programs that are, are really left-wing programs in a lot of

00:03:41.240 circumstances. And they have to bootstrap their desire to see that growth of government to the

00:03:48.020 coronavirus pandemic. And president Trump has brilliantly called their bluff because he's basically

00:03:54.300 said, okay, I'm going to take the stuff that we actually agree on that nobody's against the student loan

00:04:01.160 issue, the eviction issue, the unemployment issue. And I'm, I'm going to do something on that. And yeah,

00:04:07.860 like I think the president essentially admitted in his public remarks that there's going to be a legal

00:04:14.280 battle. There's going to be a fight, but he wants that fight. The president wants Nancy Pelosi and the 0.61

00:04:19.880 Democrats, you know, inside 90 days of an election, basically suing to stop help for students, for people

00:04:28.400 working on reemployment, but who haven't achieved that reemployment yet, oftentimes through no fault

00:04:34.080 of their own. Uh, and, and, and I think that if the president does that, it's highly likely that

00:04:39.720 the Democrats will just stop, that they won't take action, uh, to hinder the ability of our country to

00:04:48.380 provide for our people in this time of need. So Nancy Pelosi, it's your move. Are you going to sue

00:04:54.540 so that evictions are easier? Are you going to sue so that things are harder on students? Are you going

00:05:00.560 to sue so that there's not unemployment assistance for some of the folks, at least at some level who

00:05:07.060 haven't seen their jobs come back? I doubt it. I think the president has Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer

00:05:12.680 right where he wants them. He's providing for the American people. And they, as usual, are reflective

00:05:19.480 of the failures of Congress to even do the basic things that we all agree on. And you know,

00:05:25.700 the president has Pelosi right where he wants her. When you observe this interview she does

00:05:30.860 on CNN with Dana Bash, take a listen. Well, let's talk about what he did do or what he said he did

00:05:36.440 with these executive actions. Are they legal? And if you don't think they are, are you going to sue

00:05:43.500 to block them? Well, the fact is, is that whether they're legal or not takes time to figure out. I

00:05:48.880 associate myself remarks with Senator Sasse who says they're unconstitutional slop. But will you sue?

00:05:55.160 I think that's right. Well, right now we want to address the needs of the American people.

00:06:01.840 As constitutional, my constitutional advisors tell me they're absurdly unconstitutional.

00:06:09.560 The speaker doesn't want to answer. She doesn't want to commit to suing to stop help for Americans 0.99

00:06:16.000 while Democrats had no problem with executive orders for amnesty for illegal aliens. Good

00:06:21.880 interview by Dana Bash, press in the speaker and usual politician talk from Nancy Pelosi.

00:06:29.240 The American people can see through it and they know who's fighting for him. It's President Trump.

00:06:34.520 How long until we see a positive impact from President Trump's executive orders to

00:06:44.400 maintain some support for Americans during this time of great calamity during the coronavirus?

00:06:51.860 That was the question that Larry Kudlow was asked on CNN. And I think he had an interesting answer

00:06:57.260 regarding the utilization of state-based systems to provide for folks. Take a listen.

00:07:02.340 We've talked to experts about this who say that even if this did happen, that it could take months

00:07:09.660 to get this new system up and running. You agree with that?

00:07:13.320 No, I don't. The Labor Department working with the states, states believe it can happen much,

00:07:20.460 much faster than that. Mind you, all the federal money we have been putting in was running through

00:07:28.840 the state's systems. So those systems, which needed some reform and needed some updating to be sure,

00:07:36.320 those systems are in much better shape today than they were three, four months ago.

00:07:40.760 Obviously states like Florida have had to upgrade their infrastructure, improve the digital interface

00:07:47.580 that they have for folks. But Kudlow makes an interesting point that a lot of this federal

00:07:52.440 assistance hasn't solely relied on like the Small Business Administration or the Treasury. In a lot

00:07:59.520 of cases, we've leveraged the capability of private banks, of state-based systems. And so I think that

00:08:06.300 that decision early on, not to try to centralize every decision in Washington, D.C., will allow the

00:08:12.880 Trump administration to do a lot more now through the enhanced capability of the states and of the

00:08:20.660 private sector to get resources in the needs of Americans to bridge us to a time when we have

00:08:27.340 the recovery that I think we're going to see with pent-up demand and with hopefully a vaccine right

00:08:33.000 around the corner. I had the chance to join Steve Hilton with Sarah Carter last night. And one of the

00:08:42.340 issues that came up was the treatment of the issue of race by Joe Biden, the former vice president.

00:08:49.280 Take a listen. Unlike the African-American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino 1.00

00:08:53.940 community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different

00:08:59.720 things. What are the odds that the only thing that Joe Biden consistently remembers is his own

00:09:05.780 racism? Like this isn't a one-off gaffe. Like this is part of a pattern in practice for Joe Biden that dates

00:09:12.080 really all the way back to when he was up against Barack Obama in the Democratic primary. And he said Obama was

00:09:17.160 clean and articulate. What's obvious here is that when Joe Biden sees a black person in America, he has

00:09:23.060 a homogenous view of how that person ought to think and how that ought to act. That is explicitly the

00:09:28.620 definition of racism. And I don't think in this country we ought to view skin color as the sole

00:09:33.940 function of diversity. I think that people of all different skin colors and backgrounds solve problems

00:09:39.860 differently, approach issues differently, have different ideology and doctrine. And I think that's what makes

00:09:45.080 America so special. And with President Trump, we see the policies that lift up all Americans, not just

00:09:50.600 one class of Americans. And I think that can be ultimately the unifying message of a successful

00:09:55.380 campaign.

00:09:59.160 Will Democrats succeed in changing tax policy that has nothing to do with coronavirus as a result of the

00:10:07.980 coronavirus. Take a listen to Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Fox News Sunday make reference to

00:10:14.740 the salt issue. That's S-A-L-T in his response to Chris Wallace.

00:10:19.780 They're talking 900 billion, not quite a trillion, but 900 billion. You're talking 150 billion. Is there a

00:10:27.080 place in between there for aid to states and cities?

00:10:30.280 Chris, they're actually asking for 915 plus the reversal of salt, which gets you over to a trillion. But

00:10:35.500 on us, we gave 150 in the last bill. We'll give another 150 billion more. We can deal with in

00:10:43.660 January, if there's ongoing issues, we can pass more legislation. This will be the fifth bill.

00:10:48.280 We don't have to get everything done at once. What we should do is get things done for the American

00:10:52.720 public now. Come back for another bill afterwards. This is what we're talking about. The tax bill was

00:10:58.840 passed. It was signed into law by the president. It resulted in a tremendous improvement to the

00:11:06.160 American economy, more consumer confidence, more capital investment. I think just a greater sense

00:11:13.420 that America was not dead money in global deals anymore, that we would protect the dollar, that we

00:11:20.840 would protect our workers. And one of the main decision points in that tax bill was what to do with

00:11:26.400 the deductions that people were able to take from their state and local taxes. So like if you lived in

00:11:33.260 some, you know, awful blue state with some awful blue municipal government, the tax, the Dickens out of

00:11:40.980 you, you didn't always necessarily feel the full pain of that taxes, because you could deduct it from

00:11:47.580 your federal tax liability. And with the Republican tax bill, we did away with that deduction. We didn't think

00:11:55.540 that red states should be subsidizing blue states. We didn't think that in communities like mine in

00:12:04.120 Florida, where you have some of the lowest taxes in America, that you should not be able to access

00:12:10.400 a particular element of the tax code that people were able to access in places where frankly, the

00:12:16.480 government just hadn't made sound decisions like we'd made in the state of Florida on taxes.

00:12:21.520 So we get rid of the SALT deduction, the state and local tax deduction. And it, you know, whether

00:12:28.300 you like it or whether you don't, that tax bill resulted in a vibrant, thriving, roaring American

00:12:35.220 economy. And there's no argument to be made that as a result of the coronavirus, that we ought to change

00:12:42.960 the tax bill or the tax policy. So Nancy Pelosi is trying to slide this in. I'm glad Secretary Mnuchin

00:12:49.880 called her out about it. And look, I mean, I just got to be honest, as a Floridian, this

00:12:55.500 change in the tax policy has resulted in tremendous growth in our state. I mean, if you know that

00:13:01.640 you live in California, and many of our listeners do or Illinois, and you're not going to be able

00:13:07.060 to deduct this crazy state and local tax liability, you're going to make your way to Florida or Arizona

00:13:13.940 or Texas or South Carolina or any of the states that are inviting the Capitol. And I think that's

00:13:20.640 a good thing. Because ultimately, I suspect that more and more voters around the country will not

00:13:27.000 only uproot, but that they'll demand better of their states and their local governments, the government 0.84

00:13:33.660 will actually meet the needs of the people without going to excesses that are unchecked. And I think

00:13:40.580 that's what unlocks the potential and the freedom and the progress in the American economy that we

00:13:47.300 knew to be the greatest in the world before coronavirus. And I know President Trump can

00:13:53.160 make it that way again. So stop trying to undo the progress, Nancy Pelosi. Let's make sure the

00:13:59.600 coronavirus legislation actually deals with the coronavirus.

00:14:03.960 On Face the Nation yesterday, Margaret Brennan had the National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien on the

00:14:13.960 show, and they talked about election interference from our adversaries. Take a listen.

00:14:19.400 The intelligence community issued this very sharp warning on Friday, detailing efforts to interfere.

00:14:25.680 Looking at the statement from July 24th, though, the language there says adversaries are trying to

00:14:31.400 access candidates, private communications, and election infrastructure. And that's at both the state

00:14:38.840 and the federal networks. That sounds an awful lot like what Russia did back in 2016. But now it's

00:14:46.440 happening on your watch. So what are you doing to stop it?

00:14:49.560 Well, what we're doing is we've got our cyber teams in place. DHS is working very hard to track down those

00:14:55.640 malign actors, but again, it's not just Russia. Is it Russia again? Well, look, we know it's China. We know it's 0.76

00:15:02.340 Russia. We know it's Iran. Tampering with election infrastructure? Well, absolutely. Trying to access 1.00

00:15:06.840 secretary of state websites and that sort of thing and collect data on Americans and engage in influence

00:15:12.600 operations, whether it's on TikTok or Twitter or in other spaces. So, no, it's a real concern. But it's not just

00:15:20.120 Russia, Margaret. It's the Chinese don't want the president reelected. He's been tougher on China

00:15:24.200 than any president in history. I just want to clarify something here, because in the statement

00:15:28.360 that we saw Friday, the counterintelligence chief released the statement saying China prefers President

00:15:34.760 Trump to lose, but it specifically referred to public statements, policy disagreements. Are you here today

00:15:42.520 saying that China is tampering with U.S. election infrastructure? Well, they'd like the president to lose, 0.78

00:15:49.080 and China, like Russia, like Iran, have engaged in cyber attacks and phishing and that sort of thing.

00:15:55.000 We've made it very clear to our adversaries, whether it's China or Russia or Iran, stay out of our

00:15:58.680 election, and we're taking steps across the board to harden our election infrastructure. We're pumping

00:16:03.240 money into the states. DHS has a massive program running. So, for quite some time on this podcast,

00:16:08.200 I've reflected on the propensity and probability that not only Russia, but that our other adversaries

00:16:15.320 would participate in election interference. And by the way, that's nothing new. It's not even

00:16:20.280 particularly that unique to the United States. Just as we've seen our economy and our travel and the

00:16:26.360 flow of information globalized, our elections, unfortunately, have become more globalized. And

00:16:32.600 I'm glad that Robert O'Brien was there to trumpet the success that the Trump administration has made

00:16:40.440 on election security, working with our secretaries of state and our supervisors of elections to build

00:16:46.760 that resilience against interference. But it's coming. And it's noteworthy to me that China,

00:16:54.120 our real geopolitical threat, prefers Joe Biden. Now, why do you think that is? It's because they know

00:17:02.040 that Joe Biden will be more malleable to their viewpoint. And I think we all know like the

00:17:07.480 familial history with Hunter Biden and China and the personal enrichment that the Biden family

00:17:15.160 has received from China. Then you look at the decisions the Trump administration has made to

00:17:20.120 confront China on trade, to rebuild our military so that we are a credible deterrent to Chinese 1.00

00:17:27.720 aggression and that we will maintain that dominance over potential Chinese military modernization.

00:17:35.000 I mean, they're hard at work. And frankly, under the Obama administration and under the Bush

00:17:40.920 administration, we were distracted trying to build democracies in the Middle East while China was

00:17:47.720 building skyscrapers and supply chains and aircraft carriers even to project military might and military

00:17:55.320 force. In some cases, they were building islands out of nothing in the South China Sea where just

00:18:01.080 reefs had existed before. So China prefers Biden. Iran prefers Biden. And then the claim that's being made

00:18:11.640 by Pelosi and others is that Russia prefers Donald Trump. Now, why do you think it is that Russia would

00:18:18.120 prefer Trump and China would prefer Biden? Well, probably because the Trump administration sees the

00:18:23.480 world for what it is. Russia is a declining power. I mean, Russia's two principal exports are models and 0.96

00:18:31.400 oil and the United States has plenty of both. I don't think Russia has ever mattered less in in my entire

00:18:38.680 life than they do now stuck in this demographic tailspin with a fully commoditized energy economy.

00:18:45.400 Meanwhile, as I mentioned, China is a real threat. Whether or not young people in America today will be 1.00

00:18:52.120 successful, we'll get to feel that American dream and realize the prosperity that we all hope comes to

00:18:59.640 future generations in our country. That will depend on our ability to beat China. And to beat China, I 1.00

00:19:07.160 think we have to recognize that they are the true threat. And they want Joe Biden because they know Joe

00:19:13.720 Biden is weak. And Russia, I think, appreciates the fact that the Trump administration won't scapegoat

00:19:20.600 Russia for their own failures. I mean, that's what we saw from the Obama administration. The Obama 0.79

00:19:25.720 administration makes up the Russia hoax against the Trump administration because the Russia reset failed.

00:19:32.600 Their foreign policy failed. I mean, Russia essentially walked into Georgia as a consequence of

00:19:37.320 the Obama administration's weakness. And then, you know, the Obama administration and their man,

00:19:44.120 James Comey, who was left over and was the kind of carryover man into the Trump administration,

00:19:50.920 they tried to blame Hillary Clinton's electoral failures on Russia. And they're trying to do it again.

00:19:58.360 The American people see clearly what our threat is. And it is far more likely to be an authoritarian,

00:20:07.720 hegemonic China than it is to be a Russia in decline. So don't just listen uncritically to the claims that,

00:20:15.520 you know, oh, well, Russia wants Trump, China wants Biden. Think about why that's the case and who our true

00:20:21.920 threat really is. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of Hot Takes. I'm Congressman

00:20:28.340 Matt Gates. Give us a five star rating. Leave us a review. Let us know what you'd like to hear on the show.

00:20:34.100 And make sure to tune in tomorrow for more Hot Takes.

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - August 10, 2020

Episode 64 - President Trump Brilliantly Calls Pelosi's Bluff. Fighting Back Against Election Interference. China is the True Threat.

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