Episode 95 - Bloomberg Bribery. Alyssa Milano Calls Cops on Squirrels. Pimps for Police Reform.
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Summary
Mitt Romney says he'll vote yes on Trump's Supreme Court nominee, and Lou Dobbs praises Mitch McConnell for pushing his members of the Senate to do their duty. Matt talks about the Murkowski and Collins dynamic, and why they should be stripped of their committee chairhips.
Transcript
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Welcome to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz. Let's talk about the news. Mitch looks like he
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has secured the votes to ensure confirmation of the president's election to the United States
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Supreme Court, first lining up Colorado Senator in cycle Cory Gardner, lining up Chuck Grassley,
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former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, one of the kind of hardline sticklers for the rules in
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the Senate. And just yesterday, Mitt Romney even announcing that he intends to cast a vote one way
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or the other on the president's nominee. Here's Mitt Romney with his hot take. I think it's
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straightforward in terms of the qualifications you look for, which is someone who is an expert
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of the law, someone who has a record of fairness and judgment that you think is consistent with the
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law. I prefer choosing those folks who are, if you will, strict constructionists, meaning that they
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look at the law itself and the Constitution as opposed to sort of looking into the sky and pulling
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out ideas that they think may be more appropriate than either the law or the Constitution. So I
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recognize that we may have a court which has more of a conservative bent than it's had over the last
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few decades. But my liberal friends have over many decades gotten very used to the idea of having a
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liberal court. And that's not written in the stars. And I know a lot of people are saying, gosh, we don't
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want that change. I understand the energy associated with that perspective. But it's also appropriate for
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our nation, which is, if you will, center right to have a court which reflects a center right points
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of view, which, again, are not changing the law from what it states, but instead following the law
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and following the Constitution. Hats off to Mitt Romney here. You know, I think there is an appropriate
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comparison to John McCain and the health care debate. John McCain was no fan of Obamacare. He
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campaigned on it. He stood next to Mitch McConnell as McConnell said that if the Senate went
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Republican, they would pull out Obamacare root and branch. But then McCain allowed his personal
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frustration, animosity, resentment toward the president to cause him to vote no, I think not
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as a consequence of a sincere policy disagreement, but because he just didn't want to give President
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Trump the win on health care. Fast forward to Mitt Romney, also not a big fan of the president,
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voted to impeach him, I think probably resents the fact that the president didn't pick him to be
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Secretary of State when that was the job that Mitt Romney quite badly wanted after the 2016 election.
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But Mitt Romney is putting his duty to advise and consent to fulfill his term to serve the people of
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Utah above that resentment in this particular instance. And he's willing to make a judgment on
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this election that's made by the president to serve on our nation's highest court. And that's
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critically important because with what we see happening with Democrats around the country,
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and the ballot harvesting and the desire to accept votes that are cast, perhaps even beyond election
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day, it has never been more important for America to have a full complement of jurists sitting on the
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Supreme Court able to render final decisions in some of these election matters. So glad to see Romney
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making that move. And and also to McConnell, you know, this is someone who I've disagreed with
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strongly, not just on matters of policy on issues like trade, but also process. Mitch McConnell protects
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people from tough votes. That's what he's done during his leadership in the Senate. And he is,
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I think, in this particular circumstance, lashed the reshaping of the court and the judiciary to his
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own legacy. And thus, he's willing to push his members to take those votes. Now, obviously, we still
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have Murkowski and Collins. I do not believe that they should be rewarded or treated well as a
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consequence of their unwillingness to do their duty to the Senate and to the people they serve.
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I discussed the Murkowski-Collins dynamic on Lou Dobbs. Take a listen.
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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
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successful, enduring movement, the type of movement that I write about in my book Firebrand, we actually
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have to have people who are willing to confront their duties, not reject them. And it's my view that
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if a senator is going to reject their duty, then their voters ought to reject them. And I'm sick and tired
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of President Trump's voters being taken for granted. And I think in Alaska and Maine and elsewhere,
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if someone's not willing to do their job, well, maybe the voters ought to withhold their vote if a
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senator withholds theirs. And I don't think that senators who are unwilling to do their duties should
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be rewarded with political funds, should be rewarded with committee chairmanships or any other prized
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position in the leadership. If we did that, by the way, Lou, it wouldn't just have a positive effect
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now. It would set a standard going forward where during the second term of this president,
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we will actually back him and get stuff done. I'm so frustrated that when we had unified control
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of the government, we followed Paul Ryan off a cliff and didn't get immigration done, didn't get
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entitlement reform done. A lot of the things that the president wanted to see happen.
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And so now I think we've got to set the standard so that going forward, we can achieve the full
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Strip them of their committees, deprive them of political funding. I think that would be
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appropriate for those who reject their duties to the Senate, to the country, to the Constitution.
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Last night, the House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution. Passed it damn near in the
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dead of night. A continuing resolution is essentially an embrace of the status quo. It is to keep doing
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things, to keep the government funding, to fail to analyze what circumstances have led to a need
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maybe for a decrease in funding in some areas and an increase in funding in other areas. Here's my hot
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take. I voted no on this continuing resolution because I am not in Washington to keep doing things the same
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way. And it's pretty insulting for legislation that spends a trillion dollars to only have its final
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revisions revealed to members of Congress 31 minutes before the vote. That's right, over 150 pages of new or
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revised text dropped on Congress 31 minutes before a vote on a trillion dollars worth of spending. This is not the
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behavior of a serious country. Members of Congress are on the board of directors of the most powerful
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country in the world. And for some reason, maybe it's the groupthink, maybe it's the lobbyist environment,
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but we allow ourselves to be treated like toddlers by our own leadership in both parties.
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Congressmen and women allow elected leaders to go and negotiate these terms without a full
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understanding of the membership. Like if I was running in a Republican primary or any election
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really against someone who voted for this crap, I would ask them like, which of the 100 plus 150 plus
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pages that were dropped on you 31 minutes before this vote was your favorite? You know, how could you
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possibly understand the intricacies and complexities and impact on our country when the whole point is to jam
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the vote at the very end at night when people aren't paying attention with the hopes that folks will just
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rubber stamp what the leadership wants? Rubber stamping what the leadership wants in both parties has not been good
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for the United States of America. This great country deserves a Congress willing to take up serious issues, analyze
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them, make zero sum decisions. But instead, the leadership send committees in Congress off on
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freaking busy work while they carve up money newly printed for their special interest buddies.
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Now, I know there's probably good work done in this continuing resolution. I know there is support for
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our military, veterans, farmers, but it is not acceptable to validate a process that is so opaque and corrupt
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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
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seize your own agency. Don't surrender your power. Don't surrender the power of your district of the 700,000 plus people
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you serve, just because the leadership tells you, oh, this is fine. This is negotiated. This will keep the government
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running. Well, keeping the government running isn't an excuse for abandoning our duties to America, to the
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Congress, and to the Constitution. That's why I vote no on most all continuing resolutions. It's why I voted no on
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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
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leadership that thinks it's okay to have their own negotiation with each other and then just expect the
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rest of us to take it. America's tired of taking it. And I think members of Congress need to show a little
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more gumption. Election interference. No, not the kind instituted by some Russian and some troll farm in some
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faraway land impacting potentially tens of voters. No, we're talking about election interference in the
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state of Florida by Mike Bloomberg. That's right. Mike Bloomberg not only has committed $100 million in
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advertising funds to blanket the airwaves in Florida for Joe Biden, but he's also raised $16 million to pay
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off the court fines and restitution fees owed by felons that impair the voting rights of those felons in
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Florida under our constitutional provisions. So here's the story. In Florida, a felon can only vote
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after they've completed their sentence. And the legislature has interpreted the completion of a
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criminal sentence to include the payment of court costs, fines, fees, restitution to the victim. And so if
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you've completed your prison sentence, but you have an outstanding financial liability, you have not
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completed your debt to society such to vindicate voting rights. Enter Mike Bloomberg. Mike Bloomberg
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has engaged in this endeavor to raise money to pay off people's court fines. And they've done it
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specifically to impact the election for Joe Biden. Now, why is this a problem? Chapter 104, Florida
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statutes is an election law provision that creates a third degree felony for anyone who, and this part's
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very important, either directly or indirectly provides anything of value. Think about that. Anything of
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value to someone to impact not just who they will vote for, but even whether they will vote. Let's break it
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down. Is paying someone's fine restitution court cost fee a thing of value? Well, if you maintain that
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liability, then you don't have that liability. Your net worth has improved. Your balance sheet has improved. You're in
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better economic standing. So if you're in a better economic position, that is clearly something of value. And it's
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also measurable value. Like this isn't some campaign tchotchke, right? There's a specific dollar amount
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that would seem to impart value on that which is being conferred by Bloomberg. So then the next question
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from a legal element standpoint is whether or not that thing of value is provided to impact whether or
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not someone will vote and to induce them to in fact vote. Normally, this would be almost impossible to
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prove. Normally, someone would just be able to attest that, well, I wanted to go pay off these felons
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fines. And there's no proof that I'm doing this to impact an election. I may just be doing it as
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a do-gooder, as someone who wants to see these fines and fees extinguished. And if they vote, so be it.
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But in this particular case, there is a memo, there is a document where the Bloomberg organizations
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seeking to raise money from other liberal millionaires and billionaires are saying we are
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specifically doing this to impact the election and to impact the vote. I discussed it with Maria
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I'm the former criminal justice chairman of the Florida House of Representatives. I know this area
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of law well. I spoke to the Florida attorney general last night and a criminal probe may already be
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underway in Florida. Chapter 104 Florida Statutes says that it is a felony for someone to either
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directly or indirectly offer something of value to impact whether or not someone votes. So in this
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case, you have the question of whether or not paying someone's restitution and court costs
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constitutes something of value. And of course, this is a financial show. We know when you extinguish
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a liability, when you improve your balance sheet, when you improve your net worth, that is of course
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something of value. Then the next step is to determine whether or not this is intended to impact
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whether or not someone votes. We have a confession document. The memo that the Bloomberg team used
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to go and get other people to contribute to this effort literally says we are doing this to impact
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whether or not these people voted. It's not for any felon. It's not for any circumstance. They're
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specifically targeting African-Americans because they believe in Florida. African-Americans will vote
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90 to 95 percent for Joe Biden. So this isn't an exercise in democracy. This is cherry picking
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votes, offering something of value for them. And I believe the Florida attorney general has jurisdiction
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and is currently evaluating options for a criminal investigation. One final point. We also have a
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RICO statute in Florida so that this web of Bloomberg associated entities could all be brought under the
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same criminal prosecution. I've spoken with Florida attorney general Ashley Moody. She says she's all
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over this. It would not surprise me if a criminal investigation of the Bloomberg entities were
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already underway in the Sunshine State. Let's preserve the integrity of the election. Let's not allow vote
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buying. Let's have a clean, fair way to determine who should lead the country.
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Topics for the upcoming presidential debate on September 29th have been released, and it's pretty much
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anything under the sun. Not that you could keep Donald Trump and Joe Biden to any particular list
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of topics anyway. I think it is going to be a free-flowing, freewheeling, dynamic exchange of
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barbs from these two individuals who I don't think like each other very much. But the stated topics
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curated by Fox News' Chris Wallace are the Trump and Biden records, which I mean, that could mean
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anything. The Supreme Court, which could literally mean anything that could be subject to judicial review.
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COVID-19, the economy, race and violence in our cities, and the integrity of the election. Now,
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you know, obviously, I think matters like law and order, safety, security, those are really important.
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I think that foreign policy is something that should be discussed. I mean, look, Joe Biden's own
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Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, said when he left the Obama-Biden administration, that Joe Biden had been
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wrong on literally every foreign policy major decision for like 40 years. So if the people
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working closest with Joe Biden thought that he was a failure on foreign policy, it would seem to reason
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that that would be a subject that would be discussed. And by the way, President Trump is the first president
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in my life not to go and start some new extended forever war. And in fact, he's done a lot to reduce
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troop levels, bring us home more on that in a moment. But I am also disappointed to see that
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some of the generational challenges that we deal with from our monetary policy, our spending policy,
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our debt, climate change, the environment, education, these things aren't included. But
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if I know President Trump, if there's something he wants to talk about, he's going to talk about it,
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and I'm here for it. There will not be winners by American standards in the Syrian civil war.
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The losers will be those who are most entangled in this region. I believe Syria is a powder keg. It
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was not long ago that we had 10s of Americans stuck between armies of 10s of thousands on the Turkey-Syria
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border. The neocons, the war hawks, they wanted to reinforce those troops and maintain a position
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there. They wanted to forever lash the United States to whatever cause or fight the Kurds were
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in because the Kurds had, in fact, valiantly fought in the anti-ISIS campaign in their own country,
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in their own land, with billions of dollars being paid to the Kurds by the United States.
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I do not believe that because you link up with someone, because your interests align in a
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particular circumstance, that you are somehow wedded to every fight that they may have, past,
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present, or future. President Trump understood this. He saw this correctly. He was advised,
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I think, in this decision very closely by General Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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We got those Americans out of harm's way. We did not allow some bloodshed moment to then
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draw us into some extended conflict with Turkey or Syria. I mean, who even knows who's on what side
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anymore? I feel like in different times, we've funded different elements of these Arab militias
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when it suited our interests. And at the end of the day, you've got a lot of unreliable partners
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in that region, particularly in Syria. So our patrols that were left after this extraction from the
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president were largely there to ensure protection of the oil fields. Why is that important? Well,
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if the Kurds are going to maintain some autonomy themselves, they have to have the resources to fund
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that effort. They're able to resource a lot of their own defense through the revenue from oil production.
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So if we simply secure the oil fields, if the Kurds benefit from the sale of that oil and can use those
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funds to fulfill their own self-determination, all the better. It doesn't mean precious American blood
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being spilled in this hellhole of a country. And I also think that Russia is acting in a pretty malign
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way here. They are being increasingly aggressive to those US patrols around the oil fields. And the
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reports from last week were that Russian patrols and American patrols were literally ramming into one
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another. In response to that, the United States has sent an additional hundred troops to Syria,
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several additional Bradley vehicles to move troops around. Here's my hot take. The United States should
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not be sending additional forces to Syria. If anything, we should be withdrawing forces and causing the
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Kurds or whoever else wants to protect the oil fields to engage in that work and to use the revenue
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from the oil fields to have robust protection. And of course, if ISIS comes to seize any of these
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assets, we'll be there to bomb the hell out of them. But the notion that we have to increase our troop
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levels in Syria is quite noxious to America first foreign policy. And, you know, it's just quite something
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watching the way these neocons operate. I mean, Obama started the US involvement in the Syrian civil war by
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putting 40 dudes, 40 advisors into that theater. And then, of course, they need force protection and
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then they need build out and then they need rescue and extraction capability. And before you know it,
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you're there entrenched in some Syrian civil war that's gone on for quite some time and will probably
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rage on for quite some time into the future. The neocons get us into these wars slowly and they get us
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out of these wars. Never. It's my hope that President Trump will resist the calls, whether
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they're within or outside of his own administration, to send additional troops to the Middle East.
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The president's instincts are right. We have spent too much time chasing the mirages of democracy in the
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deserts of the Middle East. It's time to bring our best home, to invest in our country, and to ensure
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that America is not drained, overextended, over deployed in some of the world's most miserable
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places. The Daily Mail has the story. Alyssa Milano sparks an intense police presence in her quiet
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California neighborhood claiming an armed gunman was on her property, an armed intruder, 9-1-1. The reality
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was it was it was a teen shooting at squirrels with an air gun. So maybe a bit of an overreaction
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there. Maybe a bit of pearl clutching. I don't think Alyssa Milano would do super well in Florida.
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A lot of folks there hunting with air guns. And you know what? Squirrel's pretty good. I've had squirrel
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best in stew. Pimping ain't easy, but it can be profitable, especially when you've got some
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woketopian city paying pimps for their ideas as alternatives to policing. I know this sounds wild.
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The Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft has the story. Seattle is paying former pimp, Gorgeous Dre, $150,000 a year
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to find alternatives to policing. Now keep in mind in Seattle, the average police officer only makes
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$67,000 a year, but $150,000 is the amount that Seattle is paying to its quote-unquote street czar,
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its urban liaison. Andre Taylor gets that job. I guess he's Gorgeous Dre on the streets. He was
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convicted for prostitution-related activities in Los Angeles. If this is the future of
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the Black Lives Matter movement, count me out. I don't know that we ought to put the pimps in charge
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of our streets. I can't even believe I have to say that out loud. Who knows what next crazy idea will
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come out of Seattle. I'm dying to read the reports from Gorgeous Dre, the urban liaison, street czar,
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city pimp for Seattle. Unbelievable. Thanks for listening to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt
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Gates, and tomorrow President Trump will be in Jacksonville, Florida. I'll be down there with
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him for the trip. Looking forward to having a few America First Floridamen down in the Sunshine State.
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Can't wait to see all my fellow Floridians. And make sure to subscribe, rate the show,