The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 9 - DeSantis Unloads on Media, Future Florida Man Elon Musk, Ratcliffe Confirmed as Intel Director

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

00:00:19.920 some good news my good friend tiffany trump graduating from georgetown law school

00:00:25.240 tiffany is just a fantastic person and really up to date on a lot of the legal issues surrounding

00:00:32.780 the interface of digital platforms and the consumer experience and she's had really a lot of

00:00:39.540 advice that's been very helpful to me regarding how we can create better equity on digital platforms so

00:00:46.220 that conservative voices are able to be vibrant and bold in a marketplace of ideas that our great

00:00:52.340 country deserves so congrats tiff we're all proud of you and i know great things are ahead there is no

00:00:58.940 news hotter today and no take hotter than my good buddy ron desantis the governor of florida breathing

00:01:06.760 some fire down on the media he was fantastic in his articulation of the florida approach and how it's

00:01:16.400 worked here is the governor of florida our data is available our data is transparent in fact actor

00:01:22.280 burks has talked multiple times about how florida has the absolute best data so any insinuation

00:01:28.880 otherwise is just typical partisan narrative trying to be spun and part of the reason is that because

00:01:36.640 you got a lot of people in your profession who waxed poetically for weeks and weeks about how

00:01:42.160 florida was going to be just like new york wait two weeks florida's going to be next just like italy

00:01:47.300 wait two weeks well hell we're eight weeks away from that and it hasn't happened not only do we

00:01:52.180 have a lower death rate well we have way lower deaths generally we have a lower death rate than

00:01:56.420 the acela corridor dc everyone up there we have a lower rate death rate than the midwest illinois michigan

00:02:02.140 indiana ohio but even in our region louisiana mississippi alabama georgia florida has the lower death

00:02:09.780 rate and i was the number one landing spot from tens of thousands of people leaving the number one hot

00:02:16.580 zone in the world to come to my state so we've succeeded and i think that people just don't want 0.98

00:02:23.140 to recognize it because it challenges their narrative it challenges their assumption so they

00:02:28.140 got to try to find a boogeyman maybe it's that they're a black helicopter circling the department of

00:02:33.360 health if you believe that i got a bridge in brooklyn i'd like to sell you you know there is a certain

00:02:38.580 successful quality to folks like de santis and trump who just take it to the media who don't sit back

00:02:46.040 and allow themselves to be defined but who get out there and really defend themselves it was great to

00:02:52.560 see there's another great article in the national review by richard lowry where does ron de santis go

00:02:59.120 to get his apology the national media was so obsessed with florida beaches that it it really

00:03:08.000 i think unfairly characterized the great work the governor was doing in the last podcast i talked

00:03:13.500 about some of the specific choices that the governor made that were effective in limiting the

00:03:20.280 transmission rate and the mortality rate now governor de santis and his team are on to sentinel testing

00:03:27.140 surveillance testing and i am confident that florida will restore consumer competence and visitor

00:03:34.260 competence faster because we've got a governor who really is into the data and the details i talked

00:03:40.400 to governor de santis yesterday i can tell you he was he was reviewing reports about specific ways in

00:03:48.640 which coronavirus uh interacted with a moisture and humidity and was like you know down into the

00:03:56.400 specific facts and how that might inform on some of the policy choices that he's got to make

00:04:02.000 upcoming so he's been right all along uh i'm glad to call him a friend i'm glad to be a supporter of

00:04:07.880 his and i'm sure glad he brought out the fire in his interactions with the media when they tried to

00:04:15.280 cast him in an unfair light that's how you fight in the era of trump who knew that elon musk would become

00:04:22.820 like a new cult figure of the political right during the time of coronavirus elon musk tweeting out

00:04:29.200 cancel cancel cancel culture and amen to that i am so against the cancel culture and i don't think

00:04:36.280 you're going to be canceling elon musk he got into it with officials in california as he was doing

00:04:41.400 everything he could in a safe and responsible way to open up give people a chance to access their

00:04:47.120 economic prosperity and continue the great drive of american innovation that elon musk has had such a role

00:04:53.960 in really throughout his life but it raises the question what in the hell is elon musk still doing

00:04:59.720 in the state of california come to florida baby elon musk needs to be a florida man he needs to

00:05:05.600 join president trump and so many others that have brought their dreams and resources and registrations

00:05:11.980 to the great state of florida because we don't have that california view of the world that we feel

00:05:17.960 more powerful in the government when we can restrict your choices and your progress and your commerce we've

00:05:23.480 also got a big space mission in florida elon musk has certainly been an innovator in space and

00:05:29.440 developing ways for humans to become a multi-planetary species and so with florida leading in that endeavor

00:05:38.020 it just makes sense that he should come to the sunshine state i noted an article all the way back

00:05:43.360 from 2018 in cnbc where musk gets criticized because he gave 40 000 bucks to a republican political

00:05:51.380 action committee to ensure that republicans were elected to the house of representatives and oh did

00:05:57.220 the radical left go crazy they were you know indicating that he was a partisan that he should

00:06:02.520 you know be outed as a republican and as a conservative and in response musk rather nonchalantly

00:06:08.860 said look you know i donate to republicans i donate to democrats i think that it's important to have a

00:06:14.820 vibrant national discussion around the critical issues facing the day and bravo for that i mean look i i don't

00:06:21.220 begrudge someone because at a particular moment in time there might be a democrat cause or a democrat

00:06:26.460 candidate that they feel compelled to support i think it's okay for people to contribute to a vibrant

00:06:32.800 dialogue on issues that they care about and if elon musk tended to lean republican i know he says he's an

00:06:39.380 independent but he would certainly be my kind of republican on a few issues in this 2018 cnbc article where

00:06:46.960 he was being criticized for donating to republicans musk pointed out that on issues like humanitarian

00:06:53.660 care for the vulnerable that that he had a very progressive approach uh you know my mother is in

00:06:59.840 a wheelchair she has been for uh all of my life since i was three years old and i understand the need for

00:07:07.060 any working society to care for the vulnerable so i i certainly hold that view and elon musk is also

00:07:13.480 someone who acknowledges the obvious science of climate change and that humans by releasing carbon

00:07:19.580 absolutely contribute to climate change yeah i don't think elon musk has signed up for the green

00:07:26.720 new deal approach to having every aspect of our lives controlled by power hungry people in washington

00:07:33.100 i think that elon musk is the embodiment of the type of american innovation that we will need

00:07:39.640 to meet our challenge with climate change and other environmental contaminations that have occurred

00:07:45.800 during during the boomer era and so i i'm hopeful that uh with elon musk realizing the cancel culture

00:07:53.840 vibe out there in california that he'll pack up and uh head on over to the great state of florida and

00:08:00.080 heck we can build some great teslas for him here and we can certainly create the kind of launch

00:08:05.000 environment that would achieve elon musk's great space ambitions for our human species

00:08:09.400 stacy abrams is not a candidate for anything right now which is why i can talk about her on

00:08:16.380 a non-political podcast but i think she's wanting to be a candidate for vice president which is why her 1.00

00:08:22.540 very effective pr team has spun up this washington post profile of stacy abrams that that really

00:08:30.380 reads more like a hero's comic book than a review of how someone stands on the issues that are

00:08:36.460 qualifications for a position it compares stacy abrams to a runway supermodel and has a pose of 0.98

00:08:44.560 her in a cape if you could think i guess of all things but you know this mythologizing of losers 1.00

00:08:52.620 is something that the media seems to do with some frequency i mean you'll remember like after beto

00:08:59.780 o'rourke lost a senate race like he was the next big thing in the presidential campaign until he

00:09:06.280 actually got out there and was not all that interesting to voters as he hopped from table

00:09:10.240 to table and then you had andrew gillum right he was the next obama this national force despite the

00:09:17.380 fact that all he had actually done was be a failing mayor of a small town until making the news recently

00:09:24.080 in a hotel room with a male prostitute drugs and what appeared to be a disco ball and various forms of

00:09:32.340 pharmaceuticals you know so now stacy abrams loses the governor's race in georgia doesn't concede

00:09:43.420 and uh now is like deemed by not just the washington post but other mainstream media the next great thing

00:09:51.640 in democrat politics here is an interview the last time stacy abrams was on meet the press with

00:09:58.500 chuck todd and what's just fascinating about this is that he's asking a question about her qualifications

00:10:03.540 which is perfectly reasonable thing to do but the premise of the question is whether or not people

00:10:10.280 will overlook her obvious on paper qualifications so just just listen to the question from chuck todd

00:10:17.720 try to understand how absurd it is that he builds that into the premise and then even just as

00:10:22.720 interesting listen to her answer i'm going to ask you the vp question do you worry that no matter how

00:10:26.660 qualified you are on paper that the perception you've not run a large organization as an executive

00:10:32.720 office holder um or have not won statewide is a knock against you for the last year and a half i have run

00:10:40.440 three national organizations including fair fight 2020 which is in 18 states protecting the right to vote

00:10:47.380 i've been traveling the country promoting a census that is accurate and that helps us prepare for the

00:10:52.600 next pandemic and for redistricting and i've been working to make certain that poor families especially

00:10:57.420 those in the south but around the country have the services they need i believe in doing the work

00:11:02.420 i've been doing it since the day i did not become governor and i will continue to do so

00:11:06.340 and i do so at a national level because i understand that while i may be grounded in georgia

00:11:11.080 and a daughter of the south my responsibility is to do the work to make sure all of our communities

00:11:16.060 are healthy and safe and able to participate in our democracy so now here stacy abrams is saying that

00:11:23.280 her her qualification to be the vice president of the united states to someone who who is obviously

00:11:29.900 sort of in the early stages of uh of of something uh so her qualification is she has run a multi-state

00:11:38.440 organization to register voters now like this is not some massive employee base this is not some

00:11:45.540 strategic company that's got to find develop a brand or find their their echelon in the market like

00:11:51.580 by by this standard stacy abrams would barely be qualified to like own and manage a modest chain 0.95

00:12:00.940 of ruby tuesdays and yet baked into the premise of chuck todd's question is just how darn qualified she 0.98

00:12:08.140 is and yet you know people who go out there you know like ted cruz and ron de santis and president

00:12:14.460 trump who win elections uh they don't seem to get the same treatment as the losers so maybe that's uh

00:12:20.060 maybe that's the price of winning you got to go out there and fight so at this point everyone in

00:12:26.040 america knows that there was a trump dossier that it was false that it was an attack on our democracy

00:12:32.820 that it was funded by democrats that it was polluted by russians and then it was used illegally in a

00:12:41.160 secret court with no adversarial process to smear and spy on americans with the hope of gaining

00:12:48.320 leverage against the president now we know that there wasn't just a trump dossier there was also

00:12:55.240 a flynn dossier the fbi doing everything they could not just to pay for dirt on the president but

00:13:02.260 even to pay for dirt on the people around the president when they went to speak to flynn it wasn't

00:13:07.800 to conduct a legitimate counterintelligence investigation they had already listened to all

00:13:13.620 the conversations that that they were aware of between flynn and kislyak instead it was an effort

00:13:19.260 to set him up uh to get him out of the trump administration and then to use that as leverage

00:13:24.500 somehow against the president and and really to try to recast the obama administration's foreign policy

00:13:31.880 failures as the fault of russia this you know this declining power and i mean think about how russia has

00:13:39.620 been viewed in my lifetime you know you you got uh george w bush who said he could you know look into

00:13:45.520 putin and see his soul you had a senator john mccain say that that he saw only the kgb you had mit romney

00:13:52.680 say that russia was this greatest geopolitical threat that we could possibly face as a country and i sort of

00:14:00.720 want to just reply you know okay boomers to all of that because it it doesn't strike me as a real modern

00:14:07.520 approach to russia and flynn in his communications with susan rice and others seem to embody the more

00:14:16.300 modern perspective that russia while not our friend while mischievous was really a regional power and to 0.66

00:14:24.160 every extent that we could de-conflict with russia that was probably a good thing for the world and

00:14:29.160 and again that doesn't mean that we share values or interests it simply means that um you know in the

00:14:34.460 fight against radical islam and the desire to have diminished violence on the syria-turkey border there

00:14:40.320 are some places where russia can be less of a malign actor and more cooperative and so flynn really opens

00:14:48.880 the door to those policy questions but what we have also learned about flynn is that the setup the detail

00:14:57.780 the unmasking really shows how high this scandal went think about it flynn was the incoming national

00:15:06.660 security advisor i mean this guy wasn't going to get taken out by you know some low-level bureaucrat in

00:15:12.840 a windowless cubicle with green shades on i mean we saw circumstances where the fbi lawyer kevin

00:15:19.140 cline smith altered documents before the fisa court but like it it it really with flynn goes so much

00:15:27.560 deeper than that and i think that what we've learned in these recent disclosures uh is very very damaging

00:15:34.240 to obama and to biden here's my commentary on sean hannity last night regarding the way in which

00:15:41.060 the flynn setup informs on the depth of the scandal and the people involved if lies were

00:15:48.800 music susan rice would be mozart if i were writing myself a email where three times i had to say i did

00:15:56.100 everything by the book that is certainly more incriminating than it is exculpatory and when

00:16:00.720 you look at jim comey just look at the last three tweets from jim comey you have a flower an attack on

00:16:06.140 the department of justice that's probably investigating him and praise for the removed

00:16:10.840 disgraced now former chairman of the intelligence committee richard burr now if rick rannell had been

00:16:15.920 the director of national intelligence back in 2017 jim comey would probably already be under the jail

00:16:21.580 because the grinnell disclosures lay bare the coup before the american people obama was involved

00:16:27.700 biden was involved susan rice was involved and jim comey was set up to be the inside man

00:16:33.300 going from the obama administration to the trump administration and remember all that weird

00:16:38.340 journaling he was doing to try to set the president up on obstruction of justice

00:16:41.960 well now it is exposed and it's my expectation that finally we could get justice from the

00:16:47.820 investigation that ag bar is overseeing chuck ross with the daily caller has written a brilliant piece

00:16:53.800 that highlights some elements of the inspector general's report regarding the setup of michael flynn

00:16:59.500 in a way that the traditional media has not done uh you know flynn in fact faced these

00:17:06.420 unproven allegations that he was having an affair with some lady with tied tied to russians uh that

00:17:13.040 allegation was bought and paid for by our own fbi from christopher steel matter of fact

00:17:18.580 chuck ross's reporting goes through these elements of the inspector general michael horowitz's report

00:17:24.520 where he says that the fbi had paid significant sums of money to christopher steel this foreign agent

00:17:31.960 essentially to go dig up dirt on flynn and in horowitz's review of the dirt it doesn't even

00:17:38.580 appear that it's all to be true they allege that flynn is having some extramarital affair with some

00:17:42.480 russian lady and that he left some dinner with her but when the horowitz team went and talked to

00:17:47.420 the husband of this lady he indicated that he came and picked her up so it seems to be that our

00:17:54.540 government may have been paying for dirt from a foreign operative to disrupt our democracy and the 0.95

00:18:02.400 democratic choices that our voters made uh and they did so all the while crowing about the negative

00:18:09.400 consequences of foreign interference you know i mean the democrats spent the better part of three years

00:18:15.620 just you know crying and moaning about foreign interference in our elections and i'm sitting here

00:18:20.600 saying well what about the domestic interference i mean what about the interference from our own

00:18:24.560 government from these elites in washington who believe that they had all the answers and that

00:18:29.140 they weren't going to let the voters have the president that they selected so i would say

00:18:32.540 maybe domestic interference is something that we need to talk a lot more about and focus on

00:18:38.440 chuck ross's piece also talks about the way that the fbi really wanted to get access to

00:18:45.620 the sub sources of steel the people he talked to to build out the dossier now why is that important

00:18:52.240 well because we now know as a consequence of these revelations and investigations that have occurred

00:18:57.940 subsequently that the sub sources of steel were specifically targeted by russian intelligence that

00:19:05.580 one of the ways that russia wanted to be mischievous was not just to demean hillary clinton which they

00:19:12.760 probably did but also to demean donald trump the fbi field office in washington dc actually

00:19:19.560 recommended closing the counterintelligence investigation into michael flynn that seems

00:19:25.160 consistent with the notes that that show that they didn't even know why they were talking to him if it

00:19:29.420 wasn't a setup and guess who kept the flynn case open guess who ensured that there was still

00:19:36.680 an insurance policy against president trump and his team that's right peter struck the very same peter

00:19:45.160 struck who reflected bias who was utilizing uh the fbi's system to try to create uh some smear against

00:19:54.900 the incoming president uh the same peter struck who you know was i i guess you know maybe in his

00:20:01.840 efforts to impress his uh girlfriend lisa page was trying to show what a what a big bad baller he was

00:20:08.320 and what his capabilities were to uh impeach and destabilize the presidency so when you see these

00:20:15.360 characters like struck as the basis to maintain the investigation and when you see other presumably

00:20:20.960 honest fbi people saying well is this a setup do we even have a basis to be here why are we even

00:20:26.260 investigating flynn why don't we close this counterintelligence investigation it just makes

00:20:30.640 you wonder how are they able to keep up the con so long how are they able to do it and and really

00:20:37.240 nothing better encapsulates this than the commentary of my good friend and mentor congressman jim jordan

00:20:43.140 jim jordan was on the hannity show and and really compared the three months of rick grinnell and all the

00:20:50.080 disclosures we've gotten to the three years that we've had under fbi director christopher ray

00:20:54.800 here's congressman jordan's commentary on that subject compare three years of chris ray

00:20:59.680 with three months of rick grinnell i i don't see where the fbi director is taking this seriously

00:21:05.000 you know we talk about all these terrible things that happened in january of 2017 and they were bad

00:21:09.320 comey tell him to keep pursuing mike flynn even though the agents wanted to drop it comey meeting

00:21:13.120 with obama talking about the flynn kislyak conversation comey going up to trump tower briefing

00:21:18.160 the president on the dossier that he already knows is false and of course comey sneaking guys into the

00:21:22.280 white house to set up michael flynn on january 24th but we forget what happened in those critical

00:21:27.040 eight days in may of 2017 comey's fired on the ninth moeller gets appointed on the 17th as a special

00:21:33.420 counsel but in between they were talking rod rosenstein about wearing a wire they were talking

00:21:38.760 about the 25th amendment they were talking about an obstruction of justice investigation into the

00:21:43.600 president of the united states and chris ray doesn't seem to care so we're going to try to go

00:21:48.600 around him and see if we can get these guys to come testify and answer some questions

00:21:51.640 my good friend a great texan someone i've served with on the house judiciary committee john ratcliffe

00:21:58.800 has been confirmed as the new director of national intelligence john will do a fantastic job he was

00:22:05.560 one of the leading legal minds in the defense of the president both in the russia hoax and in the

00:22:12.000 goofy knockoff ukraine sequel you know the president had originally nominated john ratcliffe

00:22:17.640 as a consequence of his qualifications and diligence and his patriotism for the country

00:22:22.920 and it was weird when when he was first nominated i did not see a whole lot of love from the united

00:22:30.640 states senate you know the the now uh disgraced removed former intelligence committee chairman richard

00:22:36.600 burr gave a pretty lukewarm statement in response to ratcliffe's original nomination and then lo and

00:22:43.680 behold when president trump put uh acting director rick runnell in place boy the senate sure seemed to

00:22:49.500 hop to it to confirm ratcliffe uh here's what you can expect from john very high integrity high honesty

00:22:56.820 and i'll make this bold prediction john always seemed to be most worked up in the judiciary committee

00:23:04.300 about the information that should have been included in the discussion and in the analysis of all this

00:23:12.100 russia stuff that wasn't included uh whether those in those pieces of evidence took the form of

00:23:19.340 transcripts or recordings or notes you know john was always a guy that felt like the more actual proof

00:23:27.720 that we got before the american people of this corrupt setup the better and that sometimes rubbed some

00:23:34.980 of the traditional intel people on the right and on the left the wrong way you know that that is a

00:23:40.840 community built on secrecy and keeping stuff contained and i know that there is a time when that's

00:23:47.480 appropriate but when you're trying to steal an election from the voters we need to get out as

00:23:51.400 much information as possible and so i think it would be hard to top the incredible tenure of rick

00:23:58.140 runnell as the acting dni but i have every confidence that john ratcliffe will continue that progress

00:24:03.600 i think you're going to see more disclosures under ratcliffe i'll leave you this nugget

00:24:08.400 specifically as it relates to george papadopoulos and the effort to set him up and make him into some

00:24:15.600 like big criminal figure when he clearly wasn't there's evidence around that that i think will be

00:24:21.580 the focus of john ratcliffe and some of the people that were engaged by our government to try to set up

00:24:28.960 papadopoulos the way they set up flynn i think you may be learning a lot more about that for all that

00:24:35.360 we've learned about flynn there's a lot more to learn about the way that our own government

00:24:40.340 tried to you know convert the otherwise pretty legitimate activities of george papadopoulos into

00:24:47.240 like the centerpiece of some international criminal ring so we'll learn more and john's going to get the

00:24:52.600 truth out thanks so much for listening to hot takes with matt gates we appreciate all of the five star

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The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - May 21, 2020

Episode 9 - DeSantis Unloads on Media, Future Florida Man Elon Musk, Ratcliffe Confirmed as Intel Director

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