Episode 76 - Who Cares About the Alleged Falwell Throuple？ Bette Midler is a Horrible Person. Term Limits on Agenda. Tiffany Trump Uncancels.
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Summary
Two people were killed and another was wounded in protests overnight in the Wisconsin city of Kenosha. Rep. Matt Gaetz responds to the violence and calls for a return to a semblance of order in the streets of the city.
Transcript
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Welcome to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz. Let's talk about the news. The news in Wisconsin
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is more damage, more destruction, more violence, potentially more death on the horizon. We certainly
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hope not. Take a listen. Now to breaking news overnight from Kenosha, Wisconsin. At least
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two people were killed there last night. Another wounded when shots rang out during protest over
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the shooting of Jacob Blake by police. We are still learning about the victims and about who
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allegedly opened fire on the third strike night, straight night of clashes in the city.
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But violence spilled onto the streets of Kenosha once again overnight. Two people were killed and
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another was wounded after shooting broke out. It breaks my heart to hear this news, to see
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just the never ending cycle of outrageous, destructive conduct in our country. And while I think there's
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obviously an appropriate time for peaceful protest, there is no basis for the type of harm to our
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fellow Americans that we currently see in Wisconsin. Sadly, this is proving a point that I made earlier
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on the podcast when we saw this type of violent reaction in Portland, in Seattle, on the West Coast,
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I warned that in the heartland, in regular America, we could also see some of these very
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devastating consequences. And we don't want to see that. We don't want it for anyone. We want safe
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streets. We want supported police. We want institutions that work. And it's my hope that we will be able to
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return to that normal sometime soon. But a great nation cannot allow its cities to burn and be just
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run over by a permanent criminal element. And I am hopeful that we will see a strong response to this
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if people are in jeopardy of being harmed as a consequence of the riots.
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My good friend Tiffany Trump gave a fabulous speech at the Republican National Convention.
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And I want you to take a special listen to the portions that deal with the cancel culture and big
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tech and the control over debate in our country that some seek to have.
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People must recognize that our thoughts, our opinions, and even the choice of who we are voting for
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may and are being manipulated and visibly coerced by the media and tech giants.
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If you tune into the media, you get one biased opinion or another. And what you share, if it does
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not fit into the narrative that they seek to promote, then it is either ignored or deemed a lie,
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regardless of the truth. This manipulation of what information we receive impedes our freedoms.
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Rather than allowing Americans the right to form our own beliefs, this misinformation system keeps
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people mentally enslaved to the ideas they deem correct. This has fostered unnecessary fear and
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divisiveness amongst us. Why are so many in media and technology and even in our own government
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so invested in promoting a biased and fabricated view? Ask yourselves, why are we prevented from
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seeing certain information? Why is one viewpoint promoted while others are hidden? The answer is control,
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because division and controversy breed a profit. But what are the consequences when only one side of the
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story gets out? Or when only one viewpoint is acceptable? For our education system, it meant
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sacrificing civil debate by creating an atmosphere where students with contrary opinions are too afraid
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to speak. Many students find themselves suppressing their beliefs to fit into what the acceptable group
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think is. In short, our nation suffers by inhibiting our diversity of thought and inclusion of ideas.
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Is cancel culture something that only the elite care about? I was listening to Nate Silver on the 538
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podcast today, and they talked about the cancel culture concerns as concerns that only political elite
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folks have on the right and left, and that regular Americans don't really feel the impact of being
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canceled or censored. I don't think that's true. I think all around this country, people are frustrated as they
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learn more about how digital platforms curate information in a special way to try to shape
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reality to fit their particular narrative or their particular worldview. And I think that it may have
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been the case, you know, two, three years ago, that you only had people that were hyper involved or
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engaged in politics, focused on the control that big tech has. But I think more and more, the base,
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certainly of the Republican Party sees the dangers of big tech, we see the danger of cancel culture,
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and we love our culture, we don't want to see it canceled. And we also don't want to see big tech
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define the nature of truth in our country. And so I think Tiffany Trump is right on. And it's quite
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something that you've almost seen a reversal in how politics deals with this question of a full and
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robust debate. It used to be the case that you had some of the more puritanical minds on the
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Republican side saying, Oh, we can't, you know, we have to ban offensive speech or dangerous speech or
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hate speech. And the reality is, we have to have a constitutional accommodation, even for speech that
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makes us uncomfortable. And it was, you know, more in the 90s and early 2000s, the political left,
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the ACLU type folks who stood up and said, Well, you know, we have to allow for, you know, these
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offensive thoughts to enter the marketplace of ideas, so that we are strong enough to defeat them.
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And now, it's just the opposite. It is the woke left, it is the kind of, I think, you know,
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frailty of the current left wing position in this country that says, Well, if it's if it offends us,
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if it is not consistent with what we believe should be the reset of America, then no one should hear
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it that it has to be crowded out of the public discussion. And I just have a higher view of
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America and Americans. Our country is strong enough to hear offensive speech. Our country is strong
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enough to hear hate speech, because in a healthy marketplace of ideas, those ideas don't win, we prevail
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over them with inclusiveness and love and appreciation for one another. That's the America
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I want to live in one that achieves its highest virtue and potential as a consequence of including
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ideas, not excluding them. We know what we don't believe not because we haven't heard it, but because
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we have and because we use facts and evidence to get it right. Getting it right is what America has done
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over the last couple hundred years. And I think that we're only going to stay great and stay active
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in our minds and in our lives if we are able to confront bad ideas and bad speech with better
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Lindsay McPherson with Roll Call just wrote a profile about yours truly. And I think they're trying to
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figure out what quite to make of me. I don't want to run for House leadership. I am not intending to
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run for any other political office other than that which I have. And yet they're trying to understand
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why I am endorsing candidates in races, why sometimes I have a different view than our leadership when it
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comes to fundraising and who it's appropriate to take money from. I'm the only Republican in the Congress
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currently who doesn't take PAC money. I think that that just makes members of Congress a part of the
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maid service in the Washington money laundering game. And I'm not here for it. So I lay out my vision on
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a better campaign finance ethic that I hope will embrace at least some of the patriots who are coming
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to Washington to try to revive our country and really breathe a lot of life and energy into this great
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Trump movement that that we've got going. And also the story that details some of the disagreements
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I've had with leadership on policy and on politics. So check it out in Roll Call. I hope you enjoy.
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Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife Becky are acquaintances of mine. I've had occasion to chat with them
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at events in Washington and I have seen them at a time or two around the country. They are currently
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in just quite a personal hell over the activities that this pool boy has alleged regarding an affair that
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involved the married couple. Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife putting out a statement that they had been
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extorted by this person, that Becky had an affair, that then he became more demanding and more aggressive,
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that it was a fatal attraction type situation. And they have stepped away from their public role
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at Liberty University so that they can deal with this. First, my heart goes out to the Falwells and
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and really anyone who has to see their personal life and their personal frailty and their personal
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choices, you know, on display before everyone to see. Second, who cares? I mean, so what? Like if,
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if someone was involved in their marriage with some other person, is it really, you know,
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part of our national nosiness that we have to be a part of it? I would like to live in a country where
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we don't judge people based on what they do in their bedrooms, where we don't judge people based
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on maybe the the worst moment that they had in a relationship or a marriage. I was the only
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Republican and at first the only member of Congress who stood up for Katie Hill when a thruple that she
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had been involved in was weaponized against her. And whether this was an affair or a thruple or
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whatever, I just don't think that it defines the contribution that someone can make to their
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country, their community, to their university, or to any institution that they care about. Look,
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no matter what thruple or non thruple the Falwells were involved in, there is no dispute that they have
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brought Liberty University to some of its highest crescendos of success from student enrollment to
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the endowment that they've built, to the athletic program that they've built, to the facilities and
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physical plan that they've built. Liberty University has thrived under Jerry Falwell Jr.'s leadership.
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And so whether it's true that his wife had an affair or whether it's true as the, as this pool
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boy claims that they were sort of all three involved in, in some activities, uh, I just don't think
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that it ought to besmirch or limit the contributions that this couple can make. Obviously they've
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reconciled with one another. If there was a conflict between them in the marriage and they're
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ready to move on with their lives. And I'm here to say, you know, good on them. Uh, but the, the,
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I guess only criticism we see, you know, from the left that I want to acknowledge and deal with
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is the criticism that, well, at Liberty, you know, the students might not be able to engage
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in all of the activities that the leadership of the school was able to engage in. I'm not here for
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the judgment, whether it's directed at the administrators or the students. Perhaps this
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is an opportunity for Liberty University to reflect on the underlying humanity of all of us, no matter
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who we are or who we love or the types of relationships we're in. Perhaps this is a chance for
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the nation to be more accommodating to the Falwells and for Liberty to be more accommodating to their
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students. Wouldn't that be a win-win for everyone? Don't judge anyone based on their thruple. Don't
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judge any student based on a relationship that they might have that might not be entirely consistent
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with someone's previous dogmas or impressions of appropriateness. A more loving, a more perfect
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union for Liberty University, for the Falwells, for all of us. It turns out Bette Midler is a pretty
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terrible person. Who knew? She always looks so happy on television, but she criticized the first
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lady Melania Trump in a tweet saying, Oh God, she still can't speak English. Now, when Republicans say
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anything even remotely negative about someone who has immigrated to our country, even if it's not
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about their immigration status, if it's just about some other thing, we're all like deemed to be
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racists and xenophobes and the worst people on the planet. But here, Bette Midler can essentially poke
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fun at the first lady who, by the way, speaks way more languages than Bette Midler does. Who's a
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brilliant, wonderful woman. I know the first lady, I think the world of her. And Bette Midler feels it
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appropriate, timely during the first lady's remarks to the country to criticize her English.
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Well, you know what? Margaret Thatcher once said that if they've got the, if they're making personal
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attacks against you, that means that they've run out of every substantive argument they could possibly
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have. And I'm of course paraphrasing the former British prime minister there, but it seems as though
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the first lady's optimism, her support of her husband, really humanizing the president in her
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remarks that got under the skin of the left and they had no substantive argument to be to make.
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And so they literally made fun of the first lady's accent. I think it's awful. And I think
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Bette Midler is pretty awful for having done it. The Washington Times has a story out about the
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president's goals for a potential second term. And I was particularly grateful that term limits are
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still included in the president's aspirations for our country and for really the draining the swamp
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reforms that we still need to see in Washington, D.C. Term limits would be so helpful to the Congress.
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They would ensure that people are focused and engaged rather than just marking time. And it also
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would create more opportunities for leadership for newer, talented members. In a seniority-based system,
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the opportunities for leadership go to the people who simply have been around the longest.
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I can't think of a single company in America that would reward seniority over talent, certainly not
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any successful ones, but yet that's what we do regularly. And it's not just the Republicans or the Democrats,
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frankly, it's an entire system that has figured out that if you drive away the ambitious people that want to move up
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quick, if you keep in the people who want to mark their time and move one rung up the ladder at a time,
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then you can find those folks to be highly corruptible. And again, this is not a partisan critique. It's an
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institutional critique. The folks that often end up leading committees are the ones that fundraise the most from the
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PACs that have interests, special interests, one might say, before those committees. So if you whore yourself out long enough,
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you really get to make a difference in the Congress of Washington. And the president thinks that we ought to have a better
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way of doing things, a way that is more driven by who you are, not how long you've been here. And if we had term limits,
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you'd have no choice but to, in a short period of time, pick the brightest people to give the tough jobs to, to get to some
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problem solving. You know, the other thing about term limits is that they really drive more consensus. And some folks wouldn't
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think about it in those terms, but it's really the case. You know, I've worked in a term limits
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environment in the Florida legislature. I work in this non-term limits environment in Washington.
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And when you know that you only have a certain amount of time to work in the institution,
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you want to get as many things done as possible on the issues you care about. And so if something
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is directionally correct, if you're getting most of what you want, if you're getting an acceptable
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amount of the agenda that you set out to do, you're willing to work with the other side. You're willing
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to work with people even on your own side that hold different views and make incremental progress
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that year after year really starts to improve people's lives. Term limits have worked for the
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state of Florida. It's led to creative and responsive public policy. And I'm glad to see
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President Trump fighting for term limits in the upcoming presidential term that I expect he will
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enjoy following his reelection. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Hot Takes. I'm Congressman
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Matt Gaetz. Tune in tomorrow for more Hot Takes.