The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 7 - Rubio Tapped for Intel Chairman, Trump Leading on COVID Testing, Camp David's Incredible History

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

00:00:06.100 be trusted congressman matt gates thank you for what you did for your country today be offended

00:00:09.760 with the democratic whip not house republicans like a machine matt gates

00:00:13.940 welcome to hot takes this is congressman matt gates let's talk about the news

00:00:20.180 big news coming out of the united states senate today marco rubio taking over the senate

00:00:25.340 intelligence committee always good to see a florida man doing well and it's good to see richard burr

00:00:31.260 ousted on his keister following the controversy surrounding his senate stock sell-off in this

00:00:37.900 episode i'll be playing some old audio from rubio back during my time working with him in the florida

00:00:43.400 legislature we come from the same legislative body and i i want to really illuminate his enduring

00:00:49.640 values and love for our country and how i think that'll serve us in the intelligence community

00:00:53.540 and also marco will unquestionably restore focus back on the western hemisphere in the intelligence

00:01:00.700 space and that's something that i think will in order the benefit of our great country but good

00:01:06.620 riddance to senator richard burr you'll remember i was the strongest and toughest republican critic

00:01:13.400 of richard burr in the entire congress frankly i don't remember one other member of congress really

00:01:19.520 coming out and calling for burr to be removed from the intelligence committee but that is precisely 1.00

00:01:25.040 what's happened a lot of the country knows about burr's sell-off of stock something i called a very

00:01:31.240 unpatriotic act while he lied to the country but if you just look at the substantive work that burr did

00:01:37.740 as chair of the intelligence committee it was very low energy it was like he allowed the democrats

00:01:43.600 and particularly mark warner of virginia to just run roughshod over him yeah i don't know if burr

00:01:49.580 needs to be removed from the senate intelligence committee as as much as he might need some like

00:01:54.540 low t supplements or something because he didn't really show a lot of leadership over there he allowed

00:01:59.840 democrats with their nonsense russia investigation to malign the president to harass the first family

00:02:07.620 to drive up legal bills for members of the administration and frankly i think history will view

00:02:13.560 the richard burr chairmanship of the intelligence committee as one that lacked any remarkable success

00:02:19.340 and that largely was either passive or low-key corrupt and i'm glad he's gone we have something very

00:02:26.560 different in marco rubio i first went to work for marco rubio in 2005 and it was very clear in the state

00:02:34.200 of florida then that he would be destined for greatness i think marco got elected to the city

00:02:39.060 council when he was like 12 years old or something like that and it was in his 20s like me that he got

00:02:45.040 elected to the state legislature marco and i during our time in the legislature that didn't overlap

00:02:50.560 we both were in our 20s running for speaker of the house at different times he prevailed in that

00:02:56.540 endeavor and became speaker i lost my speaker's race and ended up running for congress and talking to you

00:03:02.740 on this podcast but during marco's time as speaker and in the house of representatives he always really

00:03:08.940 demonstrated an understanding and an appreciation for what made our country so special take a moment

00:03:16.120 and listen to this speech from marco rubio in the florida house of representatives all the way back in

00:03:22.380 2008 and think about whether or not this is precisely the type of person you would want informing

00:03:27.700 our key intelligence decisions i want you to understand how special a country you and i share

00:03:31.800 i think we take that for granted i really do i really believe that sometimes those of us in this

00:03:36.960 country believe that america is the greatest country on earth because god loves us more than he loves the

00:03:42.160 rest of the world that is not true we are the greatest country in the history of the world because of the

00:03:47.540 sacrifices and decisions that were made by those who were entrusted with leadership in it before

00:03:51.640 and you have an obligation to ensure that it is not guaranteed and i give you that insight from

00:03:57.160 someone who interacts with people on a daily basis i know people criticize america i know there are

00:04:01.020 things wrong with this country i know there is i'll give you one brief example i remember growing up

00:04:06.380 but people use this as an example of what's wrong with this country in 1980 growing up in las vegas i

00:04:10.920 remember neighborhood kids kids taunting my parents during the mario refugee about europe a bunch of cubans 0.81

00:04:16.960 why don't you go back home why don't you go why don't you go back to cuba i remember that but that's

00:04:21.960 not reflective of america they may be americans but that is not america it never has been because for

00:04:27.780 every one of those instances i can give you the example of my parents who drove from new york to

00:04:32.580 florida and broke down in the deep south didn't know anyone didn't even know english and they couldn't

00:04:37.840 they couldn't stop the number of people that came out and helped them in 1961 to take that broken

00:04:42.540 down car and getting it fixed without any money in their pocket true story for every negative story

00:04:48.420 that i could give you and there aren't that many there are so many about that reflect the greatness

00:04:52.300 of our people marco loves america and we love marco rubio during his time in the senate before

00:04:59.040 leading the intelligence committee marco rubio was actually the chairman of the western hemisphere

00:05:04.060 subcommittee in the foreign affairs space and what i can tell you is that marco understands what's

00:05:09.380 going on in our hemisphere and i think that there's been too much focus in our national security

00:05:15.200 posture in our intelligence infrastructure build out on the middle east and frankly not enough with

00:05:23.480 what's been going on here we talk about iran a lot we talk about their malign influence in the middle

00:05:29.440 east now i'm no cheerleader for war with iran but if there is a place to push back it is undoubtedly

00:05:35.520 in the over 100 cultural centers that iran has set up right here in the western hemisphere in latin

00:05:41.820 america that's right they go and spend money to build mosques and cultural centers they find these

00:05:46.960 destitute people in countries in latin america and i mean heck you go give a bunch of like latin

00:05:51.940 american eight-year-old boys some ipads you own them you own their ideology and they will pretty much

00:05:57.180 do whatever you say and so then they'll they'll take these latin american operatives that they train up in

00:06:02.920 their cultural centers they'll bring them to tehran they'll bring them to the middle east they'll give

00:06:07.500 them even more intense training and then reinsert those folks lat back in latin america and so i think

00:06:12.840 that we need a far stronger focus on this from an intelligence standpoint and i know with great

00:06:18.080 certainty that marco rubio will do that and that he will give it the the detail that it uh and the focus

00:06:24.060 that it deserves venezuela is one of the hot spots in latin america one of the really one of the global

00:06:31.400 hot spots when it comes to our intelligence needs and i want to bring you to a scene almost a year

00:06:37.480 ago to the day it was may 9 and i am on air force one with president trump senator rubio senator scott

00:06:47.140 and congressman neil dunn and at the time we're on our way to panama city where we're going to try to

00:06:53.960 bring some hope and energy and resources to the people of northwest florida specifically panama city

00:07:00.280 who had suffered from hurricane michael so as typically can be the case we get on air force one

00:07:05.840 with the lawmakers and the president and issues range in discussion from our budget to national

00:07:11.800 disasters to even foreign policy and at this particular time there was a pretty strong and

00:07:18.320 pretty public disagreement between myself and my good friend senator rick scott on this question of

00:07:24.000 whether or not to invade venezuela the senator scott was very actively calling for the invasion of

00:07:31.880 venezuela by u.s troops so maybe troops well i know the president has ever has everything on the table

00:07:38.320 we're going to do everything everything we can including take care of our diplomats which we've got

00:07:42.980 to keep them safe so everything's i think everything's on the table right now maduro's got to step aside

00:07:47.740 and he's got to know that he has to step aside and rick scott was right in this sense the idea of

00:07:54.080 invasion of venezuela was very popular in venezuela but it was very unpopular in every other latin american

00:08:02.320 country so you could have seen a circumstance where the people of venezuela were not opposed but that

00:08:08.400 you saw destabilization in ecuador in bolivia in colombia and the concern over american interventionism

00:08:16.740 is kind of just below the surface with a lot of these folks in latin america they remember you know

00:08:22.840 the united fruit company the standard fruit company all the banana wars and banana republics and so the

00:08:28.880 u.s government going and carving out nations and governments in latin america isn't necessarily the

00:08:34.280 most popular thing in the region but there rick scott was beating the drum for an invasion of venezuela and

00:08:39.420 i had seen the public comments that senator rubio had made about the guido government about the need to

00:08:45.920 stand with juan guido who the united states had recognized as the legitimate leader of venezuela

00:08:51.180 he was very i think sensitive to and sympathetic to those needs in venezuela but here's what i observed

00:08:59.020 while rick scott was all gusto for the invasion he lacked an appreciation for some of the details about how

00:09:06.300 it would be carried out and senator rubio back then a year ago was able to cite chapter and verse

00:09:12.340 every asset we had in place where our ships were where our aircraft were precisely the capabilities

00:09:18.860 we would need whether or not that would require certain conditions and permissions from other

00:09:24.880 countries and really rubio at the time urged action but he urged it with caution with care and

00:09:33.380 and with a a true and candid appreciation for what we were able to do and what the downstream consequences would be

00:09:41.040 and in observing that conversation though rubio and i didn't have maybe precisely the same advice to the

00:09:47.360 president i was deeply comforted by his knowledge and understanding and just the way he had he'd clearly thought

00:09:53.940 this through and it did pose a bit of a contrast to senator scott's view that we simply had to invade because

00:10:01.800 we had a moral obligation and that was the end of the discussion those who have preached that type of

00:10:06.880 intervention that type of a forward-leaning posture for our country have at times got us ahead of our skis

00:10:13.800 i know with marco rubio as the intelligence chairman that all of our lawmakers and policy leaders will be

00:10:20.080 getting the best advice the best analysis and i could not be prouder of my fellow florida man marco rubio

00:10:26.180 on coronavirus it is both comical and sickening to see the extent to which the media continues to move the

00:10:41.540 goalposts on the trump administration at the outset of coronavirus i recall all these models and doomsday projections

00:10:49.820 that we were going to need hundreds of thousands of ventilators all across the country that we would

00:10:55.200 have people dying in our hospital beds there would be folks in the hallways unable to get connected to

00:11:01.820 life-saving technologies and medicines and the reality of course has been far different president trump

00:11:08.780 utilized our national resources to build a lot of ventilators to expand our ventilator capacity now we're

00:11:16.300 even exporting ventilators but when the ventilator push didn't become like the big cataclysmic event

00:11:24.000 then we ended up with testing testing testing testing and i do agree that that's one thing that

00:11:29.880 can build consumer confidence but the trump administration is not getting the credit that

00:11:34.340 it deserves for rapidly expanding testing capabilities i remember early in the coronavirus scare i had attended

00:11:40.980 the conservative political action committee conference someone had also attended that conference

00:11:45.700 who i interacted with who had coronavirus and so i got one of the very early tests and i could tell

00:11:51.740 you now going to the white house almost every day interacting with the president i get tested almost

00:11:56.920 daily and just in the period of time that we've been dealing with with this watching the advancement

00:12:03.480 of the testing regime has really been quite something i mean the first test they had to take some like

00:12:09.040 foot long wire and stick it up your nose and basically scratch the back of your throat with it

00:12:15.480 now there's just a quick little q-tip swab at the front of the nose and the results are able to be returned

00:12:21.440 far more quickly when i was in camp david with the president he was even sharing ideas from collaborations

00:12:27.600 with the private sector where there would be tests in real time where someone could utilize a strip

00:12:33.880 that would have a a color reaction that would indicate positive or negative and that i think

00:12:40.040 will be even more helpful because if you have a test now and there's a positive result there is some

00:12:45.580 lag time in getting it and you can infect people so the more we can reduce that lag time the better

00:12:50.580 and i could tell you just based on the phone calls the president was constantly fielding this last

00:12:55.800 weekend he is fully engaging the private sector to advance that testing but the washington post

00:13:02.120 had an interesting uh headline recently steve thompson's on the byline and the headline from

00:13:06.980 the washington post is as coronavirus testing expands a new problem arises not enough people to test

00:13:15.100 there's also a piece in newsday indicating that if you really look across the country at what governors

00:13:21.300 have done with mobile test sites pop-up test sites offensive test sites going in to do surveillance

00:13:28.440 testing in areas where we have vulnerable people there really has been an effective deployment of

00:13:34.600 these tests and the trump administration deserves tremendous credit for that i mean we had all these

00:13:39.660 governors and all these media types saying oh there would never be enough testing america was done

00:13:43.560 forever and now the problem is not that we don't have the tests it's that we've just got to get

00:13:48.260 people into the flow through of that testing cycle so great news but it would be nice to see the

00:13:55.900 trump administration get its due credit for all the fabulous work to expand testing

00:13:59.920 one of the unique features at camp david is that in every room there is a manifest of everyone who has

00:14:18.860 ever stayed in that room so in the sycamore cabin where i stayed i got to see that you know kissinger had

00:14:25.820 stayed there a lot of halderman and ehrlichman had stayed there one i found particularly interesting

00:14:31.420 is that george w bush had stayed in my cabin while he was the son of the vice president and then of

00:14:37.240 course would later go on to be president they give you a great walking tour at camp david to tell you

00:14:43.100 about the history i was i was interested to learn that ronald reagan actually holds the record for the

00:14:50.040 most visits to camp david but he didn't really bring people or friends ronald reagan and nancy

00:14:57.080 reagan would go to camp david but like even their own family members were rare to stay the night even

00:15:03.600 reagan's bff on the national world leader stage margaret thatcher only made it out there twice and

00:15:10.560 margaret thatcher wasn't even allowed to spend the night the presidential residence at camp david

00:15:15.080 is currently under some construction i guess they're fixing some stuff inside so i took occasion

00:15:20.600 to walk down there when uh when it was available for me to sit on the back porch and i poured a nice

00:15:27.120 tea and soaked up the history you know when you look to your left you see the the actual grill where

00:15:33.220 president eisenhower would put on his big chef's hat and go grill up steaks for his staff and you look

00:15:39.160 straight ahead and the actual vista down the mountains in maryland was envisioned and crafted

00:15:45.080 by truman himself he he hand selected the trees that he wanted to keep and those to be removed to

00:15:50.760 create this gorgeous vista and then of course if you look to the right you get to see the the

00:15:56.040 presidential hot tub and it probably won't take you too many guesses uh to figure out which of our

00:16:02.080 presidents installed the hot tub yes that was in fact the clinton hot tub so you got the ike grill

00:16:08.360 the clinton hot tub and the most beautiful vista if you're enjoying the podcast make sure to leave

00:16:14.440 us a five-star review and give us your thoughts ideas criticisms and suggestions in the comments

00:16:19.800 section listen tomorrow for more hot takes

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - May 19, 2020

Episode 7 - Rubio Tapped for Intel Chairman, Trump Leading on COVID Testing, Camp David's Incredible History

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript