Episode 96 LIVE： Trump In Manhattan (feat. Gavin Wax) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Summary
On this episode of Firebrand, Firebrand's host Jack Posobiec sits down with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GA) to discuss his fight against the Deep State and the effort to gag President Donald Trump.
Transcript
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Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress
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who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
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Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
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He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.
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So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.
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if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground,
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I'm a canceled man in some corners of the Internet.
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Many days, I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
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As you can see, I'm standing here peacefully protesting, but you called me out by name.
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While you allow crime in your streets and you send your henchmen down here
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to commit assault against people by making loud noises,
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assault against police officers who are doing their job.
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And that's why they're trying to put a gag order on President Donald John Trump.
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Well, you know what I say to Alvin Bragg and his gag order?
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To Vish Barra, to Gavin Wax, to all the New Yorkers and the free Americans who stand here
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They can gag Donald Trump, but they can't gag all of us.
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And if you're going to go after people on these pretty trivial things, then do it equally.
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But if you're only going to do it on trivial things on one side, then yeah, I think that's ridiculous.
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And if there's a crime committed, then absolutely.
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He's on photos committing crimes, whether it's narcotics or with prostitutes or whatever it is.
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And you can understand that as this continues to happen, you know, respect for the justice system,
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respect for our institutions, faith in the rule of law is going to continue to deteriorate.
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We are broadcasting from room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building on the Capitol Complex
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And that was New York Young Republican Club President Gavin Wax, who will join us in just a moment
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to give the granular view of what was happening in Manhattan on the ground, how this is being
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perceived, and who are some of these political players that have gone from features of New
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York governance to now international villains, I would say, in the case of Alvin Bragg.
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I also want to let you know, in the final segment of the show today, we are going to be showing
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a film created by the Heritage Foundation called The 20.
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I'm going to show it to you at the end of the show because it really walks through the
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vision of people like Chip Roy and Eli Crane, Anna Paulina Luna, Andy Biggs, and myself
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as we were fighting to change the House of Representatives.
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And they did this great documentary that brings you in the room to see exactly what we were
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fighting for and why the tactics we used were effective in that regard.
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So joining me now to talk about everything going on in Manhattan, president of the New York
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Young Republican Club, Gavin Wax, and I say frequently, the New York Young Republican
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Club is the premier activism organization within young Republican politics, really, if you look
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at Republican politics broadly, because it's not about coming together for conferences, it's
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not a think tank, it is activism, it is getting out there and getting the message through sometimes
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So, Gavin, I want to get into all the Trump stuff, having MTG there, having Jack Posobiec
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But first, just as president of your organization, what has made the New York Young Republican
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Club so different in terms of its attractiveness to people who really see politics as an enterprise
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of activity, not just an enterprise of thinking?
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Well, thank you, Congressman, for having me and all the kind words.
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And I think you make a great point there that this institution is about action.
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It's about engaging potential voters, growing the party and fighting even deep behind enemy
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lines in a place like New York City to achieve some serious political ends, which we have started
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to see in many local races that we have been involved in.
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But we were not content to continue the longstanding Republican tradition of cocktail parties and
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just talking a big game but not actually getting out there and fighting the battles that need
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We are willing to roll our sleeves up, get into the streets, go into lower Manhattan and protest
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and let our voices be heard for our conservative beliefs and principles.
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So we see many other organizations that would much rather stay on the sidelines and snark and
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make snide remarks and say the end is near and be nihilistic and defeat us.
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But we're looking forward to continue to fight to take this country back one block at a time
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even, even behind enemy lines in the belly of the beast in New York City.
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We are not going to tweet our way to victory against the left.
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It is going to require showing up and then bringing people into our movement with activities,
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ideas and with a sense of focus and drive that I certainly see in the New York Young Republican
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So take me to the decision you guys made to reach out to NYPD to get a secure space for
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those who support President Trump to have their voices heard in New York.
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And then obviously great to see MTG, Posobiec and others there with you.
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But what about being there was important for your organization?
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So two weeks ago we had our kind of our beta launch of this rally.
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This was before the indictment was official but it was just leaked and President Trump called
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We were the first organization to answer that call and we did it right here in Manhattan
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We did Collect Pond, which has a long history of being a swamp and then later the center of
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the Five Points, which was originally New York's, you know, red light district.
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So it's always been a center of corruption and swampiness and it continues to this day.
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Because the narrative, not just on the left, but also on the right, was that Republicans
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They can no longer exercise their First Amendment rights.
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And we absolutely wanted to dispute that argument and show that even in New York City,
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Republicans, conservatives, MAGA supporters can and should come out and exercise their
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Because the second we give up on that, the second we stay home, the left has already won
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So we had that protest two weeks ago, had a lot of press.
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This was the big one with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, as you mentioned, after the news
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And this entire park that we occupied is a full city block.
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And you can see from some of the photos that you're showing, we had this block, this park
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filled corner to corner, edge to edge, entrance to entrance with Trump supporters.
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You could see them as far out as the eye could see.
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But it was important that we let our voices be heard in a peaceful way to show the media,
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to show the leftist establishment in New York City that we are not the deplorables that
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they paint us to be, that we are actually the civil side.
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And it's the other side, the side that has to blow whistles and bang drums and screech
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hysterical things that has no idea what they're talking about.
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So it was an honor to host the Congresswoman down here in New York, or up here in New York
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rather for her, and let the entire New York City political establishment know that there
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is a strong base of support in New York City for their hometown hero, President Donald J.
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You certainly got the attention of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who took note of your
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And I spoke with Marjorie Taylor Greene yesterday, and she was concerned that the reason Eric Adams
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put that statement out was to try to gaslight violence against those of you who had no intention
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of harming anyone or engaging in anything other than First Amendment protected activity.
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Do you think Mayor Adams called you out in hopes that people would have come there to do you
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I think this was all part of a narrative formation scheme by the mayor and his lackeys to try
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to paint the Congresswoman in a certain light, try to paint the club in a certain light, and
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obviously try to paint Trump and his supporters in a certain light.
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They were basically projecting what they wished to happen.
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And in fact, I have friends on the city council and in city government who let me know before
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our last protest, that they had an all-hands-on-deck meeting with every elected official in the
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city, from the city council all up to Congress, the mayor, all the commissioners, everyone.
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And they were basically describing the event as the next January 6th.
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They were talking about snipers on roofs, all these sorts of things.
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So they were definitely trying to put things out into the ecosystem to sort of cajole a certain
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The biggest hecklers of the Congresswoman and of our rally were actually elected officials.
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You had a colleague of yours, Jamal Bowman, who was yelling at the Congresswoman, telling
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her to go back to her own district, when I don't think the congressman knows exactly where
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he is, because he wasn't in his own district either in Lower Manhattan.
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And then, of course, you had perpetual activist, Jumaane Williams, who was the public advocate
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And then you had a local city council person, I'm going to say person, because I'm not sure
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this individual's gender, Chi Osei, who was handing out whistles.
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And when the press was there and they were trying to ask, you know, well, is this a good
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Having 1,000 people in a park is a great showing.
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And outnumbering the local leftists 10 to 1 in a borough that votes, you know, 85, 90
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percent Democrat is a great turnout for Republicans and conservatives.
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So again, to the rest of the country, to the rest of the conservative nation, if we could
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do it here in New York, you could do it wherever you are.
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And when you look at the body politic and the shape of various political groups, I think
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there's an awakening now on the right that I saw reflected in who you were able to draw
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I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about Alvin Bragg.
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Alvin Bragg has stitched together an indictment that is legal foolishness.
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You would never bootstrap these misdemeanors to a federal election matter in order to try
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to cascade some 34 felonies on a single agreement to settle a private dispute.
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But help me understand this guy as a political figure, as a New Yorker.
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How did Alvin Bragg go from being the editor of the Civil Rights Journal at Harvard Law Review
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I mean, Alvin Bragg is the product of all the American institutions that we once held
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in high regard, you know, Harvard, Harvard Law.
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I mean, this is a gentleman with his pedigree, you would expect a completely different person,
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someone who could actually articulate his point of view rather than just reading off
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I mean, he represents the nihilistic globalist worldview of the American elite, particularly
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Because you leave that press conference he did the other day wondering if this is a highly
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capable individual or is he one of these machine candidates?
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I know the way politics works on the left in Manhattan, you don't just show up on the scene
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You've got to be part of this vertically integrated system they have.
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I mean, the election of DAs and judges and most offices in New York is not determined
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We are a one party town, but it is determined through the Democrat machine political process,
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It starts well before the primary and back rooms.
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It starts through a feeder system that goes all the way down to the county committee, the
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Mayor Adams is a product of the Brooklyn Democrat machine.
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So he was elected overwhelmingly, you know, our club endorsed and supported a member of
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We campaigned the old school way here in New York.
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But, you know, this is a post-political borough in many ways.
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So our valiant efforts and the valiant efforts of Alvin Bragg's, you know, challenger in that
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But at the end of the day, he is simply an extension of the popular will of Manhattan,
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which is largely this nihilistic worldview that puts the criminal above the victim.
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And he has made a name for himself as district attorney in his refusal to prosecute a whole wide
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range of violent offenses, from assaults to burglaries to even rapes against people with
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And he seems to hold victims in a particular with a particular type of disdain, particularly
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victims that had the audacity, the audacity to defend themselves, such as Jose Alba, where
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He was a bodega worker, as you may recall, who was nearly stabbed to death and was able
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And just this past week, during this entire media circus around the Trump indictment, there
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was a garage attendant here in Manhattan who miraculously also survived an attempted murder
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when he was able to steal the gun of the perpetrator and use it against him and kill that perpetrator.
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Well, of course, he was charged and he was held in handcuffs.
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And it was only due to public pressure and the media circus that was already in town
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that led Alvin Bragg to drop the charges, ultimately.
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So this is a guy with a totally warped view of crime, of law and order.
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I mean, and if you're virtue signaling like Alvin Bragg's doing, the only reason you would
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put your own constituents, the people who elected you, at risk for the sake of these woke
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policies is because you believe that that's going to ingratiate yourself to the elite in some
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way and that that will create upward political mobility.
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And so in a way, the incentive structure you're describing, Gavin, would suggest that Alvin Bragg
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If a court were to dispose of this matter, either directly or on appeal, through a motion to dismiss
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by saying that as a matter of law, you cannot lash these things together like disparate parts of a
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Mr. Potato Head doll to evade a statute of limitations, regardless of what the facts are.
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If a court were to say that, Alvin Bragg would be able to lean into the incentive structure you just
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I was there dragging him before a court to be arraigned and be forced back into our jurisdiction.
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Because you almost look at it and say, Alvin Bragg was a nobody 20 minutes ago, and now
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he's this internationally known name because he's taken this action against our country,
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against a lot of the constitutional principles that we've held dear through the Republican
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So what do you think the long game is for this guy?
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I think he's getting fast-tracked to some sort of position, maybe at the state level,
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I mean, he's going to be the darling of the elite leftist circles in this country.
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I mean, he is answering to them because he represents a constituency that is post-political.
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He's not answering to the whims of his constituents who are largely, you know, apathetic and apolitical
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He's answering to the political machine leaders that put him there to begin with.
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So you make a very – you make a solid point there that that's his incentive structure.
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That's his incentive structure for completely embarrassing himself by even just completely
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bipartisan standards just with the merits of this indictment and this case.
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I mean, he has – he's citing penal code, I think, 17510, which is a classy felony,
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which basically states that the fraud needs to be in furtherance of another crime, of an
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I mean, this entire copy and pasted indictment is a complete joke and it's a complete slap
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But he operates with impunity because he knows he can operate with impunity.
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And a part of me respects the left's and the elite's just shamelessness and their – and how
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blunt and blatant they are in their corruption and their politicization of our institutions.
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I mean, you have to almost admire it from a power politics perspective that they're so
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just cavalier in terms of how they go about their political warfare.
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And I only wish we had Republican leaders, more Republican leaders such as yourself and
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Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who could counter that kind of mentality and that kind
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of chutzpah in New York speak with an equal vigor to push back against these injustices and
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It's clear Trump sees it as you do, part of a series, part of a broader plan.
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I took note that in his remarks last night at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump didn't localize
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He talked about how there is this interwoven effort with a Fulton County prosecutor, with
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Jack Smith to get Trump at any cost and by any means.
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You, in your role as president of the New York Young Republican Club, also talked to a number
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of right and center-right leaders around the world.
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And political groups, young people make their way through New York a lot.
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I've been at your club where you've had folks from Europe in, understanding our politics and
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What is the global verdict on the United States crossing the Rubicon and indicting a former
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I think it makes us look like a bigger joke than we have already demonstrated over the last
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few months, few years of the Biden administration.
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I think they look at it like the downfall of the United States.
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I mean, you have President Bukele and El Salvador coming out and boldly proclaiming that the
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United States is no longer in a position to lecture anyone on human rights, on civil rights
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And I think it's actually doing a big disservice to the neoconservative talking point of being,
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you know, this doer of good on the world stage, on this nation that's simply working to
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advance these beautiful ideals of democracy and human rights and all that.
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I mean, we are just showing ourselves to be the emperor with no clothes on the world
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I mean, we are entering in to the ranks of such notable nations such as Uganda and Ukraine
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and Bolivia and Nicaragua who have jailed their opposition leaders.
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This is something that simply doesn't happen in a first world civilized nation with respect
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This is the kind of action that a tin pot dictatorship takes.
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So I think it's an embarrassing, you know, step for our country.
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And they're viewing it as the continued decline of American, of the American empire, of the
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And it just goes to show that we are a declining empire.
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And the world is noticing, and we're rapidly entering into a state of a multipolar world
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order with the likes of China and Russia and India and whatever else rising up and, you know,
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replacing us economically, politically, militarily and otherwise.
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And, you know, they're switching their currencies.
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I mean, this is this is a we are a nation that refuses to accept where we're heading and where
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And we're operating as if this is still, you know, the end of the Cold War.
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He knows New York president of the New York Young Republican Club at Gavin Wax.
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And, Gavin, where else are you publishing right now?
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You put out some some pretty provocative prose now and again.
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And tell tell let folks know where they can follow you.
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Well, thank you again for having me on, Congressman.
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I write for American Greatness, Town Hall, Newsmax, a few other conservative outlets.
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A piece recently I wrote, there is no Trumpism without Trump, was shared by President Donald
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I also write occasionally in Newsweek about the great work that President Bukele is doing
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down in El Salvador and the great work President Orban, Prime Minister Orban,
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is doing in Hungary and where we can look to emulate conservative policies and leadership
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I mean, that just goes to show on to our last point that we have to now look abroad in some
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respects to see leadership and success because we have so little of it here at home.
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Gavin Wax, always one of my favorite people to talk to about what's going on in politics
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So a lot of folks have asked serious questions about the goals and objectives of the group
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of members who participated in the speakers contest in a nontraditional way.
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And the Heritage Foundation recently put together a terrific little film on what we were fighting
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for and how we were choosing to lower our shoulders and weigh in.
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So make sure to go to the Heritage Foundation's page, give them a follow, subscribe so that
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you can see more of this great content that they put out.
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But since I participated in the project, I felt licensed to be able to share it with you.
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All we're talking about chaos and dysfunction in Washington because Republicans didn't sit down like Democrats do.
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It's like this cul-de-sac of greed and corruption and it just keeps going around and around.
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I felt like it doesn't even matter which party wins the majority because both sides are working for the same lobbyists.
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I had a reporter that basically accosted me in the hallway saying really vile stuff.
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One member came up to me and said, your presence disgusts me.
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So maybe the American people need to know the truth.
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And it's extraordinary what happens when you tell the truth in this town.
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Well, I think what we were fighting for was change.
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When people talk about the swamp or the establishment, I think another word I like better is the cartel, the uniparty cartel.
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I think of various aspects, bureaucracy, the lobbyists, this media cartel.
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All of these have produced interlocking relationships, which is why I call it a cartel.
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Far too often, the way that people get leadership positions or committee assignments or even have their legislation considered is all based on money.
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This establishment, this swamp, is designed to protect itself.
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The most corrupt time in this place is freshman orientation.
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Because during freshman orientation, you get the best steak you've ever eaten, the finest wine you've ever had.
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And they literally sit you down at tables with the lobbyists who lobby the committees that they know you want to serve on.
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And from day one, before you're even sworn in, they're convincing you that your path to prosperity in this town runs through the corrupt redistribution of special interest funds.
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It has been abundantly clear for a long time that only a handful of people decide what bills get to the floor, how they get to the floor, what the rules are, and how they are debated on the floor, whether members can amend on the floor.
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When I came up here, really one of the first things that I realized, and it was shocking to me, that I couldn't just, as a representative, bring a bill to the floor.
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That it had to go through something called the Rules Committee.
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And there were certain members that were a part of that Rules Committee, but it was a very small fraction.
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And that if they didn't like your legislation or your proposed legislation, that that wouldn't be brought to the House floor.
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I remember when I first came to Congress, and I wanted to serve on the Armed Services Committee because my district has such a high concentration of active duty military.
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And I was told by a member of our leadership that if I wanted to serve on that committee, that I need to furnish $75,000 in the next 10 days to the political fund for Republicans in the House of Representatives.
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And at first I was like, is anybody here wearing a wire?
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It struck me as a shakedown, but I learned that that happens every day.
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Because we didn't get the red wave that everybody thought we were going to get, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise,
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conservatives actually had a chance to push this party back towards, you know, its conservative roots.
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The whole debate about the speaker was important on a host of different levels.
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First of all, you've got to go back to why it even happened.
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All the way back to last summer, before we knew what the majority breakdown was going to be,
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was it going to be a five-seat majority, a 20-seat majority, whatever.
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And we said, look, this is an opportunity to change the culture, change the way things were done in Washington, D.C.
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We were all sitting down saying, what do we need to change about this place in terms of how the rules work?
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But then the Republican conference and the House rules.
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To take away some of the power and authority that has been over the last couple of years isolated more towards the top at leadership
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and push that back down towards the members, which in turn pushes that back towards their voters or their constituents.
00:27:47.120
We wrote them up and said, here are the problems with our current rules.
00:27:50.120
I want to talk about some spending, talk about committee assignments, not for us personally,
00:27:55.140
but just to have a look across the conference and make sure all voices were heard.
00:28:07.340
And one of the gentlemen, high-ranking official in the Congress, person with a lot of levers of power,
00:28:14.380
goes to the microphone and tells everybody, if you don't vote a certain way, you're going to be removed of all your committees.
00:28:20.540
It would be nice to wipe from the history books.
00:28:28.560
It left people in not exactly a state of mind to resolve anything.
00:28:32.360
When we started going through the process and we were putting another name out for consideration for Speaker,
00:28:39.180
and the first number was 19, we had three votes at 19, and then it went to 20,
00:28:43.340
we realized in the middle of that that we suddenly had an opportunity to speak to the entire House of Representatives, all 435 of us.
00:28:51.520
Right now, Kevin McCarthy does not have the votes.
00:28:53.740
He just made history, not in a good way, as being the first in 100 years, the first man to lose the speakership in the first round.
00:29:02.960
The House stands adjourned until noon tomorrow.
00:29:06.320
Now, within the conference, sure, there were some hard feelings.
00:29:10.400
I was contacted by a female member of Congress, and she basically said that me and the other members that voted against Leader McCarthy would be made examples of.
00:29:21.200
The court of public opinion, the conservative apparatus in Washington, right, all the smart ones, all the blue checkmark Republicans.
00:29:29.340
These guys are, you know, risking the House Speaker.
00:29:32.280
They're going to turn the speakership over to the Democrats.
00:29:34.660
My phone was blowing up by a whole lot of supporters, but a pretty good vocal minority of detractors.
00:29:49.840
I had big donors call me up, yelling and screaming, saying, this is a clown show.
00:29:56.060
People standing up, offering debates, and going back and forth.
00:30:01.600
That's the way a constitutional republic works.
00:30:04.260
We are getting hit from the left, from the right.
00:30:06.960
I mean, people that we thought were our allies in conservative media were calling us extortionists.
00:30:13.600
They were using the media to pressure our constituents into thinking that we were somehow single-handedly.
00:30:19.300
By debating ideas in Congress, we were somehow destroying the country.
00:30:24.340
The media coverage always revels in any discord or perceived discord whatsoever in the Republican conference.
00:30:29.840
The vast majority of the media is left-leaning and supportive of the left, if not just running the ball for them on every occasion.
00:30:37.100
And it took a while before everybody knew we were serious, but they finally got it, and we were willing to go to the table.
00:30:46.560
When people realize you're serious, then they take you seriously.
00:30:50.800
Suddenly, everybody was saying, wait, these guys and gals are fighting for something.
00:30:54.420
Some of my best friends in conservative media were sharply criticizing me, by name, frequently.
00:31:01.980
As soon as they saw the result, they couldn't wait to pick up the pom-poms and start waving them.
00:31:09.200
There was one point, we're in the middle of this heated debate.
00:31:12.680
It was like 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock in the morning.
00:31:14.800
Representative Massey, who was voting for Speaker McCarthy, runs in, out of breath, cars in the middle of the street.
00:31:20.640
He's like, if you guys can pull this off, you will be able to bring the institutional change that I've been trying to get for, like, the last, like, 12 years.
00:31:28.100
I think it was about, what, the 13th vote or something like that.
00:31:31.160
We were in negotiations the day previously, late into the evening and even into the next morning.
00:31:37.020
And we had felt relatively comfortable that we had a framework.
00:31:41.380
So that last day, Friday, we were furiously working right before we went back on the floor.
00:31:46.700
That evening, we met with a speaker with the definitive agreement, and he indicated his agreement to it.
00:31:53.460
So that's the time you saw kind of the damn break.
00:31:56.220
And there was a large number of members that were previously not voting for Speaker McCarthy that suddenly said, I will.
00:32:02.740
And if you remember, when I stood up, I said, in good faith, Kevin McCarthy.
00:32:07.560
Therefore, the Honorable Kevin McCarthy of the state of California, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.
00:32:26.800
We will hold the swamp accountable from the withdrawal of Afghanistan to the origins of COVID and to the weaponization of the FBI.
00:32:37.380
The most important thing we got out of this was fundamentally changing the balance of power.
00:32:45.180
First time ever in Congress a single-subject rule.
00:32:48.540
So bills that come through have a single subject.
00:32:51.100
If they don't, we don't take them up or we divide them.
00:32:54.240
Key provisions like a 72 hours to be able to read bills, the ability to offer amendments that are germane, you know, they're relevant to the actual underlying text of the bill.
00:33:03.920
We never wanted to legislate by omnibus ever again.
00:33:08.720
The diversification of members that are conservative on very important committees to include oversight in judiciary and house rules and appropriations.
00:33:17.000
We're going to have a strong weaponization committee attached to judiciary to go after the woke, weaponized government disrupting our freedom.
00:33:23.420
The power to ensure the Speaker honors his commitments by making sure we maintain the ability to vacate if we have to use it, which you never really want to do.
00:33:31.120
Those are all things that people said, wait a minute, they're fighting for us.
00:33:34.920
The reason that I did what I did and voted the way I did for 14 or 15 rounds was because that's what I heard from my voters for a year and a half.
00:33:42.920
If you go out, walk out of my office and look on the sign on the door, it says representative.
00:33:52.000
They hired me to come to Washington to fight to change the town for them.
00:33:55.260
But how do you go out and negotiate if you don't have some people willing to say, hmm, you can't just count on my vote?
00:34:01.000
Thank you again to the Heritage Foundation for putting that documentary film together.
00:34:16.240
And thank you to my colleagues who worked to ensure that we had the tools to change Washington.
00:34:21.940
Remember, our focus is on borders and budgets and bureaucrats.
00:34:26.700
But if we do not use those tools to force change, then we have achieved nothing in that speaker contest process.
00:34:34.340
But we'll have those flashpoints coming forward on the debt limit, on major legislation in April on the border.
00:34:41.200
And we will be here to hold the House of Representatives to account.
00:34:45.560
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00:34:51.520
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00:34:54.820
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