The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 95 - Bloomberg Bribery. Alyssa Milano Calls Cops on Squirrels. Pimps for Police Reform.

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

00:00:22.440 has secured the votes to ensure confirmation of the president's election to the United States

00:00:28.220 Supreme Court, first lining up Colorado Senator in cycle Cory Gardner, lining up Chuck Grassley,

00:00:35.460 former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, one of the kind of hardline sticklers for the rules in

00:00:40.800 the Senate. And just yesterday, Mitt Romney even announcing that he intends to cast a vote one way

00:00:47.520 or the other on the president's nominee. Here's Mitt Romney with his hot take. I think it's

00:00:51.940 straightforward in terms of the qualifications you look for, which is someone who is an expert

00:00:55.840 of the law, someone who has a record of fairness and judgment that you think is consistent with the

00:01:01.120 law. I prefer choosing those folks who are, if you will, strict constructionists, meaning that they

00:01:07.960 look at the law itself and the Constitution as opposed to sort of looking into the sky and pulling

00:01:13.920 out ideas that they think may be more appropriate than either the law or the Constitution. So I

00:01:18.960 recognize that we may have a court which has more of a conservative bent than it's had over the last

00:01:26.640 few decades. But my liberal friends have over many decades gotten very used to the idea of having a

00:01:32.600 liberal court. And that's not written in the stars. And I know a lot of people are saying, gosh, we don't

00:01:38.280 want that change. I understand the energy associated with that perspective. But it's also appropriate for

00:01:43.960 our nation, which is, if you will, center right to have a court which reflects a center right points

00:01:49.740 of view, which, again, are not changing the law from what it states, but instead following the law

00:01:56.420 and following the Constitution. Hats off to Mitt Romney here. You know, I think there is an appropriate

00:02:01.140 comparison to John McCain and the health care debate. John McCain was no fan of Obamacare. He

00:02:08.240 campaigned on it. He stood next to Mitch McConnell as McConnell said that if the Senate went

00:02:13.880 Republican, they would pull out Obamacare root and branch. But then McCain allowed his personal

00:02:20.940 frustration, animosity, resentment toward the president to cause him to vote no, I think not

00:02:28.800 as a consequence of a sincere policy disagreement, but because he just didn't want to give President

00:02:33.760 Trump the win on health care. Fast forward to Mitt Romney, also not a big fan of the president,

00:02:39.340 voted to impeach him, I think probably resents the fact that the president didn't pick him to be

00:02:45.100 Secretary of State when that was the job that Mitt Romney quite badly wanted after the 2016 election.

00:02:51.280 But Mitt Romney is putting his duty to advise and consent to fulfill his term to serve the people of

00:02:58.560 Utah above that resentment in this particular instance. And he's willing to make a judgment on

00:03:04.240 this election that's made by the president to serve on our nation's highest court. And that's

00:03:09.340 critically important because with what we see happening with Democrats around the country,

00:03:14.120 and the ballot harvesting and the desire to accept votes that are cast, perhaps even beyond election

00:03:21.740 day, it has never been more important for America to have a full complement of jurists sitting on the

00:03:29.600 Supreme Court able to render final decisions in some of these election matters. So glad to see Romney

00:03:36.680 making that move. And and also to McConnell, you know, this is someone who I've disagreed with

00:03:42.080 strongly, not just on matters of policy on issues like trade, but also process. Mitch McConnell protects

00:03:49.600 people from tough votes. That's what he's done during his leadership in the Senate. And he is,

00:03:55.300 I think, in this particular circumstance, lashed the reshaping of the court and the judiciary to his

00:04:02.560 own legacy. And thus, he's willing to push his members to take those votes. Now, obviously, we still

00:04:07.560 have Murkowski and Collins. I do not believe that they should be rewarded or treated well as a

00:04:14.960 consequence of their unwillingness to do their duty to the Senate and to the people they serve.

00:04:20.980 I discussed the Murkowski-Collins dynamic on Lou Dobbs. Take a listen.

00:04:26.200 Well, I don't know that Leader McConnell takes his P's and Q's from me, but I think that if we want to be a

00:04:31.120 successful, enduring movement, the type of movement that I write about in my book Firebrand, we actually

00:04:36.200 have to have people who are willing to confront their duties, not reject them. And it's my view that

00:04:41.420 if a senator is going to reject their duty, then their voters ought to reject them. And I'm sick and tired

00:04:46.660 of President Trump's voters being taken for granted. And I think in Alaska and Maine and elsewhere,

00:04:52.220 if someone's not willing to do their job, well, maybe the voters ought to withhold their vote if a

00:04:57.380 senator withholds theirs. And I don't think that senators who are unwilling to do their duties should

00:05:01.940 be rewarded with political funds, should be rewarded with committee chairmanships or any other prized

00:05:07.300 position in the leadership. If we did that, by the way, Lou, it wouldn't just have a positive effect

00:05:11.700 now. It would set a standard going forward where during the second term of this president,

00:05:17.040 we will actually back him and get stuff done. I'm so frustrated that when we had unified control

00:05:22.000 of the government, we followed Paul Ryan off a cliff and didn't get immigration done, didn't get

00:05:27.480 entitlement reform done. A lot of the things that the president wanted to see happen.

00:05:31.500 And so now I think we've got to set the standard so that going forward, we can achieve the full

00:05:36.460 potential of this presidency.

00:05:38.260 Strip them of their committees, deprive them of political funding. I think that would be

00:05:43.060 appropriate for those who reject their duties to the Senate, to the country, to the Constitution.

00:05:52.580 Last night, the House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution. Passed it damn near in the

00:05:59.440 dead of night. A continuing resolution is essentially an embrace of the status quo. It is to keep doing

00:06:05.720 things, to keep the government funding, to fail to analyze what circumstances have led to a need

00:06:13.560 maybe for a decrease in funding in some areas and an increase in funding in other areas. Here's my hot

00:06:19.500 take. I voted no on this continuing resolution because I am not in Washington to keep doing things the same

00:06:26.480 way. And it's pretty insulting for legislation that spends a trillion dollars to only have its final

00:06:35.120 revisions revealed to members of Congress 31 minutes before the vote. That's right, over 150 pages of new or

00:06:44.240 revised text dropped on Congress 31 minutes before a vote on a trillion dollars worth of spending. This is not the

00:06:53.200 behavior of a serious country. Members of Congress are on the board of directors of the most powerful

00:06:58.760 country in the world. And for some reason, maybe it's the groupthink, maybe it's the lobbyist environment,

00:07:05.840 but we allow ourselves to be treated like toddlers by our own leadership in both parties.

00:07:12.340 Congressmen and women allow elected leaders to go and negotiate these terms without a full 1.00

00:07:18.180 understanding of the membership. Like if I was running in a Republican primary or any election

00:07:23.760 really against someone who voted for this crap, I would ask them like, which of the 100 plus 150 plus 0.93

00:07:31.640 pages that were dropped on you 31 minutes before this vote was your favorite? You know, how could you 0.99

00:07:37.100 possibly understand the intricacies and complexities and impact on our country when the whole point is to jam

00:07:46.660 the vote at the very end at night when people aren't paying attention with the hopes that folks will just

00:07:53.540 rubber stamp what the leadership wants? Rubber stamping what the leadership wants in both parties has not been good

00:08:01.500 for the United States of America. This great country deserves a Congress willing to take up serious issues, analyze

00:08:09.320 them, make zero sum decisions. But instead, the leadership send committees in Congress off on

00:08:16.140 freaking busy work while they carve up money newly printed for their special interest buddies.

00:08:23.660 Now, I know there's probably good work done in this continuing resolution. I know there is support for

00:08:29.780 our military, veterans, farmers, but it is not acceptable to validate a process that is so opaque and corrupt

00:08:40.540 to vote for this thing. And so I'm not going to do it. And I would call on more patriots within the Congress to

00:08:47.360 seize your own agency. Don't surrender your power. Don't surrender the power of your district of the 700,000 plus people

00:08:55.400 you serve, just because the leadership tells you, oh, this is fine. This is negotiated. This will keep the government

00:09:01.620 running. Well, keeping the government running isn't an excuse for abandoning our duties to America, to the

00:09:09.480 Congress, and to the Constitution. That's why I vote no on most all continuing resolutions. It's why I voted no on

00:09:16.700 this one. And it's why we need more people in Congress to do their job, to do better, and to demand more of a

00:09:24.000 leadership that thinks it's okay to have their own negotiation with each other and then just expect the

00:09:30.520 rest of us to take it. America's tired of taking it. And I think members of Congress need to show a little

00:09:36.620 more gumption. Election interference. No, not the kind instituted by some Russian and some troll farm in some

00:09:47.580 faraway land impacting potentially tens of voters. No, we're talking about election interference in the

00:09:54.480 state of Florida by Mike Bloomberg. That's right. Mike Bloomberg not only has committed $100 million in

00:10:01.760 advertising funds to blanket the airwaves in Florida for Joe Biden, but he's also raised $16 million to pay

00:10:09.520 off the court fines and restitution fees owed by felons that impair the voting rights of those felons in

00:10:17.420 Florida under our constitutional provisions. So here's the story. In Florida, a felon can only vote

00:10:25.440 after they've completed their sentence. And the legislature has interpreted the completion of a

00:10:31.360 criminal sentence to include the payment of court costs, fines, fees, restitution to the victim. And so if

00:10:38.580 you've completed your prison sentence, but you have an outstanding financial liability, you have not

00:10:44.300 completed your debt to society such to vindicate voting rights. Enter Mike Bloomberg. Mike Bloomberg

00:10:52.560 has engaged in this endeavor to raise money to pay off people's court fines. And they've done it

00:10:59.880 specifically to impact the election for Joe Biden. Now, why is this a problem? Chapter 104, Florida

00:11:07.540 statutes is an election law provision that creates a third degree felony for anyone who, and this part's

00:11:16.140 very important, either directly or indirectly provides anything of value. Think about that. Anything of

00:11:24.400 value to someone to impact not just who they will vote for, but even whether they will vote. Let's break it

00:11:33.060 down. Is paying someone's fine restitution court cost fee a thing of value? Well, if you maintain that

00:11:42.200 liability, then you don't have that liability. Your net worth has improved. Your balance sheet has improved. You're in

00:11:49.680 better economic standing. So if you're in a better economic position, that is clearly something of value. And it's

00:11:56.200 also measurable value. Like this isn't some campaign tchotchke, right? There's a specific dollar amount

00:12:02.140 that would seem to impart value on that which is being conferred by Bloomberg. So then the next question

00:12:10.360 from a legal element standpoint is whether or not that thing of value is provided to impact whether or

00:12:17.980 not someone will vote and to induce them to in fact vote. Normally, this would be almost impossible to

00:12:24.280 prove. Normally, someone would just be able to attest that, well, I wanted to go pay off these felons

00:12:30.220 fines. And there's no proof that I'm doing this to impact an election. I may just be doing it as

00:12:36.420 a do-gooder, as someone who wants to see these fines and fees extinguished. And if they vote, so be it.

00:12:42.760 But in this particular case, there is a memo, there is a document where the Bloomberg organizations

00:12:49.500 seeking to raise money from other liberal millionaires and billionaires are saying we are

00:12:56.000 specifically doing this to impact the election and to impact the vote. I discussed it with Maria

00:13:01.620 Bartiromo this morning. Take a listen.

00:13:03.820 I'm the former criminal justice chairman of the Florida House of Representatives. I know this area

00:13:07.840 of law well. I spoke to the Florida attorney general last night and a criminal probe may already be

00:13:12.960 underway in Florida. Chapter 104 Florida Statutes says that it is a felony for someone to either

00:13:19.420 directly or indirectly offer something of value to impact whether or not someone votes. So in this

00:13:26.760 case, you have the question of whether or not paying someone's restitution and court costs

00:13:31.160 constitutes something of value. And of course, this is a financial show. We know when you extinguish

00:13:36.420 a liability, when you improve your balance sheet, when you improve your net worth, that is of course

00:13:41.420 something of value. Then the next step is to determine whether or not this is intended to impact

00:13:46.740 whether or not someone votes. We have a confession document. The memo that the Bloomberg team used

00:13:53.220 to go and get other people to contribute to this effort literally says we are doing this to impact

00:13:59.400 whether or not these people voted. It's not for any felon. It's not for any circumstance. They're

00:14:04.460 specifically targeting African-Americans because they believe in Florida. African-Americans will vote

00:14:09.340 90 to 95 percent for Joe Biden. So this isn't an exercise in democracy. This is cherry picking

00:14:15.820 votes, offering something of value for them. And I believe the Florida attorney general has jurisdiction

00:14:21.900 and is currently evaluating options for a criminal investigation. One final point. We also have a

00:14:27.520 RICO statute in Florida so that this web of Bloomberg associated entities could all be brought under the

00:14:33.860 same criminal prosecution. I've spoken with Florida attorney general Ashley Moody. She says she's all

00:14:39.320 over this. It would not surprise me if a criminal investigation of the Bloomberg entities were

00:14:45.880 already underway in the Sunshine State. Let's preserve the integrity of the election. Let's not allow vote

00:14:52.680 buying. Let's have a clean, fair way to determine who should lead the country. 0.97

00:15:00.320 Topics for the upcoming presidential debate on September 29th have been released, and it's pretty much

00:15:07.400 anything under the sun. Not that you could keep Donald Trump and Joe Biden to any particular list

00:15:13.200 of topics anyway. I think it is going to be a free-flowing, freewheeling, dynamic exchange of

00:15:20.020 barbs from these two individuals who I don't think like each other very much. But the stated topics

00:15:24.980 curated by Fox News' Chris Wallace are the Trump and Biden records, which I mean, that could mean

00:15:30.760 anything. The Supreme Court, which could literally mean anything that could be subject to judicial review.

00:15:37.400 COVID-19, the economy, race and violence in our cities, and the integrity of the election. Now,

00:15:44.180 you know, obviously, I think matters like law and order, safety, security, those are really important.

00:15:51.020 I think that foreign policy is something that should be discussed. I mean, look, Joe Biden's own

00:15:56.340 Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, said when he left the Obama-Biden administration, that Joe Biden had been

00:16:04.460 wrong on literally every foreign policy major decision for like 40 years. So if the people

00:16:12.120 working closest with Joe Biden thought that he was a failure on foreign policy, it would seem to reason

00:16:17.260 that that would be a subject that would be discussed. And by the way, President Trump is the first president

00:16:22.360 in my life not to go and start some new extended forever war. And in fact, he's done a lot to reduce

00:16:29.760 troop levels, bring us home more on that in a moment. But I am also disappointed to see that

00:16:35.780 some of the generational challenges that we deal with from our monetary policy, our spending policy,

00:16:42.500 our debt, climate change, the environment, education, these things aren't included. But

00:16:48.700 if I know President Trump, if there's something he wants to talk about, he's going to talk about it,

00:16:54.000 and I'm here for it. There will not be winners by American standards in the Syrian civil war.

00:17:04.300 The losers will be those who are most entangled in this region. I believe Syria is a powder keg. It 0.99

00:17:11.300 was not long ago that we had 10s of Americans stuck between armies of 10s of thousands on the Turkey-Syria

00:17:18.900 border. The neocons, the war hawks, they wanted to reinforce those troops and maintain a position

00:17:26.020 there. They wanted to forever lash the United States to whatever cause or fight the Kurds were 0.96

00:17:32.320 in because the Kurds had, in fact, valiantly fought in the anti-ISIS campaign in their own country,

00:17:40.140 in their own land, with billions of dollars being paid to the Kurds by the United States.

00:17:45.300 I do not believe that because you link up with someone, because your interests align in a

00:17:51.080 particular circumstance, that you are somehow wedded to every fight that they may have, past,

00:17:56.980 present, or future. President Trump understood this. He saw this correctly. He was advised,

00:18:03.260 I think, in this decision very closely by General Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

00:18:07.960 We got those Americans out of harm's way. We did not allow some bloodshed moment to then

00:18:14.080 draw us into some extended conflict with Turkey or Syria. I mean, who even knows who's on what side

00:18:21.100 anymore? I feel like in different times, we've funded different elements of these Arab militias

00:18:26.880 when it suited our interests. And at the end of the day, you've got a lot of unreliable partners

00:18:32.000 in that region, particularly in Syria. So our patrols that were left after this extraction from the 1.00

00:18:39.580 president were largely there to ensure protection of the oil fields. Why is that important? Well,

00:18:45.680 if the Kurds are going to maintain some autonomy themselves, they have to have the resources to fund 0.51

00:18:52.460 that effort. They're able to resource a lot of their own defense through the revenue from oil production.

00:18:58.680 So if we simply secure the oil fields, if the Kurds benefit from the sale of that oil and can use those 0.84

00:19:06.080 funds to fulfill their own self-determination, all the better. It doesn't mean precious American blood

00:19:12.740 being spilled in this hellhole of a country. And I also think that Russia is acting in a pretty malign 0.93

00:19:22.140 way here. They are being increasingly aggressive to those US patrols around the oil fields. And the

00:19:29.100 reports from last week were that Russian patrols and American patrols were literally ramming into one

00:19:34.500 another. In response to that, the United States has sent an additional hundred troops to Syria,

00:19:40.700 several additional Bradley vehicles to move troops around. Here's my hot take. The United States should

00:19:48.220 not be sending additional forces to Syria. If anything, we should be withdrawing forces and causing the 0.99

00:19:55.740 Kurds or whoever else wants to protect the oil fields to engage in that work and to use the revenue

00:20:01.900 from the oil fields to have robust protection. And of course, if ISIS comes to seize any of these

00:20:09.140 assets, we'll be there to bomb the hell out of them. But the notion that we have to increase our troop

00:20:14.360 levels in Syria is quite noxious to America first foreign policy. And, you know, it's just quite something 0.90

00:20:22.940 watching the way these neocons operate. I mean, Obama started the US involvement in the Syrian civil war by

00:20:29.360 putting 40 dudes, 40 advisors into that theater. And then, of course, they need force protection and

00:20:36.020 then they need build out and then they need rescue and extraction capability. And before you know it,

00:20:41.500 you're there entrenched in some Syrian civil war that's gone on for quite some time and will probably

00:20:47.660 rage on for quite some time into the future. The neocons get us into these wars slowly and they get us

00:20:55.360 out of these wars. Never. It's my hope that President Trump will resist the calls, whether

00:21:01.620 they're within or outside of his own administration, to send additional troops to the Middle East.

00:21:07.560 The president's instincts are right. We have spent too much time chasing the mirages of democracy in the

00:21:15.600 deserts of the Middle East. It's time to bring our best home, to invest in our country, and to ensure 0.99

00:21:22.500 that America is not drained, overextended, over deployed in some of the world's most miserable

00:21:29.560 places. The Daily Mail has the story. Alyssa Milano sparks an intense police presence in her quiet

00:21:40.620 California neighborhood claiming an armed gunman was on her property, an armed intruder, 9-1-1. The reality

00:21:48.960 was it was it was a teen shooting at squirrels with an air gun. So maybe a bit of an overreaction

00:21:56.060 there. Maybe a bit of pearl clutching. I don't think Alyssa Milano would do super well in Florida. 1.00

00:22:03.020 A lot of folks there hunting with air guns. And you know what? Squirrel's pretty good. I've had squirrel

00:22:08.460 best in stew. Pimping ain't easy, but it can be profitable, especially when you've got some

00:22:18.600 woketopian city paying pimps for their ideas as alternatives to policing. I know this sounds wild.

00:22:28.500 The Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft has the story. Seattle is paying former pimp, Gorgeous Dre, $150,000 a year

00:22:37.280 to find alternatives to policing. Now keep in mind in Seattle, the average police officer only makes

00:22:43.840 $67,000 a year, but $150,000 is the amount that Seattle is paying to its quote-unquote street czar,

00:22:53.280 its urban liaison. Andre Taylor gets that job. I guess he's Gorgeous Dre on the streets. He was

00:23:00.680 convicted for prostitution-related activities in Los Angeles. If this is the future of

00:23:07.260 the Black Lives Matter movement, count me out. I don't know that we ought to put the pimps in charge 0.70

00:23:13.900 of our streets. I can't even believe I have to say that out loud. Who knows what next crazy idea will

00:23:20.800 come out of Seattle. I'm dying to read the reports from Gorgeous Dre, the urban liaison, street czar,

00:23:29.320 city pimp for Seattle. Unbelievable. Thanks for listening to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt

00:23:36.760 Gates, and tomorrow President Trump will be in Jacksonville, Florida. I'll be down there with

00:23:42.020 him for the trip. Looking forward to having a few America First Floridamen down in the Sunshine State.

00:23:48.540 Can't wait to see all my fellow Floridians. And make sure to subscribe, rate the show,

00:23:53.840 and join us tomorrow for more Hot Takes.

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - September 23, 2020

Episode 95 - Bloomberg Bribery. Alyssa Milano Calls Cops on Squirrels. Pimps for Police Reform.

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