The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - April 05, 2023


Episode 96 LIVE： Trump In Manhattan (feat. Gavin Wax) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz


Episode Stats


Length

35 minutes

Words per minute

178.73552

Word count

6,406

Sentence count

372

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

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

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 In battle, Congressman Matt Gaetz.
00:00:03.660 Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress
00:00:06.520 who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:00:10.920 Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:00:13.740 He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.
00:00:16.760 So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.
00:00:20.140 If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer,
00:00:23.340 if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground,
00:00:26.800 then welcome, my fellow patriots.
00:00:29.180 You are in the right place.
00:00:31.060 This is the movement for you.
00:00:33.160 You ever watch this guy on television?
00:00:35.500 It's like a machine, Matt Gaetz.
00:00:37.960 I'm a canceled man in some corners of the Internet.
00:00:41.080 Many days, I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
00:00:45.880 They aren't really coming for me.
00:00:47.840 They're coming for you.
00:00:49.680 I'm just in the way.
00:00:55.400 To the Mayor Adams.
00:00:57.060 As you can see, I'm standing here peacefully protesting, but you called me out by name.
00:01:04.420 While you allow crime in your streets and you send your henchmen down here
00:01:08.640 to commit assault against people by making loud noises,
00:01:12.940 assault against police officers who are doing their job.
00:01:16.540 They're terrified of the voters.
00:01:18.420 They're terrified of people having a voice.
00:01:21.640 And that's why they're trying to put a gag order on President Donald John Trump.
00:01:27.400 Have you heard that?
00:01:28.340 A gag order.
00:01:29.360 Well, you know what I say to Alvin Bragg and his gag order?
00:01:32.420 Boo! 0.83
00:01:34.180 Boo! 0.83
00:01:34.760 And you know something?
00:01:37.700 To Vish Barra, to Gavin Wax, to all the New Yorkers and the free Americans who stand here
00:01:43.280 with me today.
00:01:44.480 They can gag Donald Trump, but they can't gag all of us.
00:01:49.080 And they will not gag all of us.
00:01:51.900 Our voices will be heard and we will not stop.
00:01:55.920 I just want the law to be applied equally.
00:01:58.440 And if you're going to go after people on these pretty trivial things, then do it equally. 0.56
00:02:01.860 But if you're only going to do it on trivial things on one side, then yeah, I think that's ridiculous.
00:02:06.000 And if there's a crime committed, then absolutely.
00:02:08.040 I mean, we've seen the news of Hunter Biden.
00:02:10.280 He's on photos committing crimes, whether it's narcotics or with prostitutes or whatever it is.
00:02:16.620 No one's going after that.
00:02:17.580 And you can understand that as this continues to happen, you know, respect for the justice system,
00:02:22.720 respect for our institutions, faith in the rule of law is going to continue to deteriorate.
00:02:26.660 So it's a problem for society as a whole.
00:02:30.800 We are live.
00:02:31.920 Thanks for joining us back on Firebrand.
00:02:33.780 We are broadcasting from room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building on the Capitol Complex
00:02:38.820 in Washington, D.C.
00:02:40.320 And that was New York Young Republican Club President Gavin Wax, who will join us in just a moment
00:02:45.580 to give the granular view of what was happening in Manhattan on the ground, how this is being
00:02:51.220 perceived, and who are some of these political players that have gone from features of New
00:02:57.100 York governance to now international villains, I would say, in the case of Alvin Bragg.
00:03:03.020 I also want to let you know, in the final segment of the show today, we are going to be showing
00:03:07.360 a film created by the Heritage Foundation called The 20.
00:03:11.500 And it's about 10 minutes long.
00:03:12.780 I'm going to show it to you at the end of the show because it really walks through the
00:03:17.000 vision of people like Chip Roy and Eli Crane, Anna Paulina Luna, Andy Biggs, and myself
00:03:22.920 as we were fighting to change the House of Representatives.
00:03:26.000 So I want to give you an inside look.
00:03:28.080 And they did this great documentary that brings you in the room to see exactly what we were
00:03:32.840 fighting for and why the tactics we used were effective in that regard.
00:03:37.680 So joining me now to talk about everything going on in Manhattan, president of the New York
00:03:42.940 Young Republican Club, Gavin Wax, and I say frequently, the New York Young Republican
00:03:47.220 Club is the premier activism organization within young Republican politics, really, if you look
00:03:55.440 at Republican politics broadly, because it's not about coming together for conferences, it's
00:04:01.160 not a think tank, it is activism, it is getting out there and getting the message through sometimes
00:04:07.380 in a very contested environment in New York.
00:04:11.720 So, Gavin, I want to get into all the Trump stuff, having MTG there, having Jack Posobiec
00:04:17.480 on the ground.
00:04:18.340 But first, just as president of your organization, what has made the New York Young Republican
00:04:23.200 Club so different in terms of its attractiveness to people who really see politics as an enterprise
00:04:31.640 of activity, not just an enterprise of thinking?
00:04:34.900 Well, thank you, Congressman, for having me and all the kind words.
00:04:38.980 And I think you make a great point there that this institution is about action.
00:04:44.100 It's about getting out there.
00:04:45.100 It's about knocking on doors.
00:04:46.260 It's about organizing rallies.
00:04:48.420 It's about engaging potential voters, growing the party and fighting even deep behind enemy
00:04:53.960 lines in a place like New York City to achieve some serious political ends, which we have started
00:04:58.840 to see in many local races that we have been involved in.
00:05:02.000 But we were not content to continue the longstanding Republican tradition of cocktail parties and
00:05:09.880 just talking a big game but not actually getting out there and fighting the battles that need
00:05:16.440 to be waged.
00:05:17.160 We are willing to roll our sleeves up, get into the streets, go into lower Manhattan and protest
00:05:22.640 and let our voices be heard for our conservative beliefs and principles.
00:05:27.940 So we see many other organizations that would much rather stay on the sidelines and snark and
00:05:34.760 make snide remarks and say the end is near and be nihilistic and defeat us.
00:05:40.500 But we're looking forward to continue to fight to take this country back one block at a time
00:05:46.340 even, even behind enemy lines in the belly of the beast in New York City.
00:05:49.180 We are not going to tweet our way to victory against the left.
00:05:54.200 It is going to require showing up and then bringing people into our movement with activities,
00:06:00.720 ideas and with a sense of focus and drive that I certainly see in the New York Young Republican
00:06:05.060 Club.
00:06:05.900 So take me to the decision you guys made to reach out to NYPD to get a secure space for
00:06:12.500 those who support President Trump to have their voices heard in New York.
00:06:16.800 And then obviously great to see MTG, Posobiec and others there with you.
00:06:22.360 But what about being there was important for your organization?
00:06:28.460 Absolutely.
00:06:29.300 So two weeks ago we had our kind of our beta launch of this rally.
00:06:33.900 This was before the indictment was official but it was just leaked and President Trump called
00:06:38.420 for protests.
00:06:39.780 We were the first organization to answer that call and we did it right here in Manhattan
00:06:43.560 outside the courthouse.
00:06:45.020 We did Collect Pond, which has a long history of being a swamp and then later the center of
00:06:49.800 the Five Points, which was originally New York's, you know, red light district.
00:06:53.540 So it's always been a center of corruption and swampiness and it continues to this day.
00:06:58.600 But we chose that spot.
00:07:00.240 We did a smaller protest that was confined.
00:07:02.780 We vetted everyone.
00:07:03.720 And why did we do that?
00:07:04.540 Because the narrative, not just on the left, but also on the right, was that Republicans
00:07:08.580 and conservatives can no longer protest.
00:07:10.540 They can no longer rally.
00:07:11.880 They can no longer exercise their First Amendment rights.
00:07:14.580 And we absolutely wanted to dispute that argument and show that even in New York City,
00:07:20.740 Republicans, conservatives, MAGA supporters can and should come out and exercise their
00:07:26.380 First Amendment rights.
00:07:27.180 Because the second we give up on that, the second we stay home, the left has already won
00:07:30.960 another major victory.
00:07:31.940 So we had that protest two weeks ago, had a lot of press.
00:07:35.440 We got some headlines.
00:07:36.640 But then this time was different.
00:07:37.900 This was the big one with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, as you mentioned, after the news
00:07:43.480 of the indictment dropped.
00:07:44.800 We had several days to promote it.
00:07:46.620 And this entire park that we occupied is a full city block.
00:07:49.920 And you can see from some of the photos that you're showing, we had this block, this park
00:07:55.160 filled corner to corner, edge to edge, entrance to entrance with Trump supporters.
00:08:00.220 It was a beautiful sight to behold.
00:08:02.520 You could see them as far out as the eye could see.
00:08:05.800 It was a sea of people.
00:08:07.020 And of course, there was a lot of press.
00:08:08.880 There was international press, domestic press.
00:08:11.300 But it was important that we let our voices be heard in a peaceful way to show the media,
00:08:16.440 to show the leftist establishment in New York City that we are not the deplorables that
00:08:21.700 they paint us to be, that we are actually the civil side.
00:08:24.440 We are the side that can speak to the issues.
00:08:27.340 And it's the other side, the side that has to blow whistles and bang drums and screech
00:08:31.920 hysterical things that has no idea what they're talking about.
00:08:34.940 So it was an honor to host the Congresswoman down here in New York, or up here in New York
00:08:39.020 rather for her, and let the entire New York City political establishment know that there 1.00
00:08:44.620 is a strong base of support in New York City for their hometown hero, President Donald J.
00:08:49.720 Trump.
00:08:50.040 You certainly got the attention of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who took note of your
00:08:56.420 upcoming event, made mention of it.
00:08:59.000 And I spoke with Marjorie Taylor Greene yesterday, and she was concerned that the reason Eric Adams
00:09:05.420 put that statement out was to try to gaslight violence against those of you who had no intention
00:09:11.120 of harming anyone or engaging in anything other than First Amendment protected activity.
00:09:16.320 Do you think Mayor Adams called you out in hopes that people would have come there to do you
00:09:21.620 harm?
00:09:22.460 Absolutely.
00:09:23.160 I think this was all part of a narrative formation scheme by the mayor and his lackeys to try
00:09:29.140 to paint the Congresswoman in a certain light, try to paint the club in a certain light, and
00:09:33.060 obviously try to paint Trump and his supporters in a certain light.
00:09:36.100 They were basically projecting what they wished to happen.
00:09:39.200 And in fact, I have friends on the city council and in city government who let me know before
00:09:43.940 our last protest, that they had an all-hands-on-deck meeting with every elected official in the
00:09:48.860 city, from the city council all up to Congress, the mayor, all the commissioners, everyone.
00:09:53.680 And they were basically describing the event as the next January 6th.
00:09:57.740 They were talking about snipers on roofs, all these sorts of things.
00:10:00.240 So they were definitely trying to put things out into the ecosystem to sort of cajole a certain
00:10:06.040 response from their left-wing compatriots.
00:10:09.180 And to that end, they did have some success.
00:10:11.800 The biggest hecklers of the Congresswoman and of our rally were actually elected officials.
00:10:17.300 You had a colleague of yours, Jamal Bowman, who was yelling at the Congresswoman, telling
00:10:22.260 her to go back to her own district, when I don't think the congressman knows exactly where 1.00
00:10:26.000 he is, because he wasn't in his own district either in Lower Manhattan.
00:10:29.260 And then, of course, you had perpetual activist, Jumaane Williams, who was the public advocate
00:10:34.460 of the city of New York.
00:10:35.560 And then you had a local city council person, I'm going to say person, because I'm not sure
00:10:39.320 this individual's gender, Chi Osei, who was handing out whistles. 0.79
00:10:44.360 Of course, they can't hear our arguments.
00:10:46.160 They can't hear our side.
00:10:47.420 They just want to drown us out.
00:10:49.240 But despite that, we outnumbered them 10 to 1.
00:10:52.600 And when the press was there and they were trying to ask, you know, well, is this a good
00:10:56.240 showing?
00:10:56.660 I would say absolutely.
00:10:57.720 Having 1,000 people in a park is a great showing.
00:11:00.180 And outnumbering the local leftists 10 to 1 in a borough that votes, you know, 85, 90
00:11:05.900 percent Democrat is a great turnout for Republicans and conservatives.
00:11:09.720 So again, to the rest of the country, to the rest of the conservative nation, if we could
00:11:13.540 do it here in New York, you could do it wherever you are.
00:11:16.360 And when you look at the body politic and the shape of various political groups, I think
00:11:24.040 there's an awakening now on the right that I saw reflected in who you were able to draw
00:11:29.680 to your event.
00:11:30.580 I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about Alvin Bragg.
00:11:33.880 Alvin Bragg has stitched together an indictment that is legal foolishness.
00:11:40.960 It's legal voodoo. 0.94
00:11:42.480 You would never bootstrap these misdemeanors to a federal election matter in order to try
00:11:47.960 to cascade some 34 felonies on a single agreement to settle a private dispute.
00:11:55.300 But help me understand this guy as a political figure, as a New Yorker.
00:12:01.680 You understand the politics there.
00:12:03.600 How did Alvin Bragg go from being the editor of the Civil Rights Journal at Harvard Law Review
00:12:09.520 to having this major role as the Manhattan DA?
00:12:13.980 It's a great question.
00:12:15.000 I mean, Alvin Bragg is the product of all the American institutions that we once held
00:12:21.760 in high regard, you know, Harvard, Harvard Law.
00:12:24.500 I mean, this is a gentleman with his pedigree, you would expect a completely different person,
00:12:30.540 someone who could actually articulate his point of view rather than just reading off
00:12:34.280 a piece of paper at a press conference.
00:12:36.460 I mean, he represents the nihilistic globalist worldview of the American elite, particularly
00:12:43.520 of the New York elite.
00:12:44.540 I mean, he has no idea what he's doing.
00:12:46.460 Is he smart?
00:12:47.140 Is he smart?
00:12:47.860 Because you leave that press conference he did the other day wondering if this is a highly
00:12:53.160 capable individual or is he one of these machine candidates?
00:12:57.860 I know the way politics works on the left in Manhattan, you don't just show up on the scene
00:13:03.620 and get somewhere.
00:13:04.580 You've got to be part of this vertically integrated system they have.
00:13:09.060 Does he come out of that?
00:13:10.500 Certainly not an outsider.
00:13:12.820 I don't know.
00:13:13.060 Absolutely.
00:13:13.460 You raise a good point.
00:13:14.540 I mean, the election of DAs and judges and most offices in New York is not determined
00:13:20.200 in the general election.
00:13:21.360 We are a one party town, but it is determined through the Democrat machine political process,
00:13:27.500 which doesn't even start at the primary.
00:13:29.500 It starts well before the primary and back rooms.
00:13:32.320 It starts through a feeder system that goes all the way down to the county committee, the
00:13:35.420 district leader spots.
00:13:36.520 And he is a product of that system.
00:13:38.020 And so is Mayor Adams.
00:13:38.980 Mayor Adams is a product of the Brooklyn Democrat machine.
00:13:41.640 So he was elected overwhelmingly, you know, our club endorsed and supported a member of
00:13:47.480 our club, Thomas Kniff, against him.
00:13:50.300 And, you know, we handed out literature.
00:13:51.800 We campaigned the old school way here in New York.
00:13:53.840 But, you know, this is a post-political borough in many ways.
00:13:57.180 So our valiant efforts and the valiant efforts of Alvin Bragg's, you know, challenger in that
00:14:03.080 race were largely fruitless.
00:14:05.840 But at the end of the day, he is simply an extension of the popular will of Manhattan,
00:14:10.860 which is largely this nihilistic worldview that puts the criminal above the victim.
00:14:15.160 And he has made a name for himself as district attorney in his refusal to prosecute a whole wide
00:14:21.280 range of violent offenses, from assaults to burglaries to even rapes against people with
00:14:26.740 long rap sheets.
00:14:28.180 And he seems to hold victims in a particular with a particular type of disdain, particularly
00:14:33.260 victims that had the audacity, the audacity to defend themselves, such as Jose Alba, where
00:14:38.260 it took him close to a month to drop charges.
00:14:40.320 He was a bodega worker, as you may recall, who was nearly stabbed to death and was able
00:14:45.000 to fight off his attacker.
00:14:46.980 And just this past week, during this entire media circus around the Trump indictment, there
00:14:51.200 was a garage attendant here in Manhattan who miraculously also survived an attempted murder
00:14:58.400 when he was able to steal the gun of the perpetrator and use it against him and kill that perpetrator.
00:15:04.740 And what happened to this gentleman?
00:15:06.000 Well, of course, he was charged and he was held in handcuffs.
00:15:08.480 And it was only due to public pressure and the media circus that was already in town
00:15:13.160 that led Alvin Bragg to drop the charges, ultimately.
00:15:15.840 So this is a guy with a totally warped view of crime, of law and order.
00:15:21.200 But it's a virtue signal, right?
00:15:22.920 I mean, and if you're virtue signaling like Alvin Bragg's doing, the only reason you would
00:15:27.480 put your own constituents, the people who elected you, at risk for the sake of these woke
00:15:32.120 policies is because you believe that that's going to ingratiate yourself to the elite in some
00:15:37.300 way and that that will create upward political mobility. 0.76
00:15:40.920 And so in a way, the incentive structure you're describing, Gavin, would suggest that Alvin Bragg
00:15:46.180 can even win for losing.
00:15:47.760 If a court were to dispose of this matter, either directly or on appeal, through a motion to dismiss
00:15:54.260 by saying that as a matter of law, you cannot lash these things together like disparate parts of a
00:16:01.040 Mr. Potato Head doll to evade a statute of limitations, regardless of what the facts are.
00:16:06.420 If a court were to say that, Alvin Bragg would be able to lean into the incentive structure you just
00:16:12.540 described, saying, well, I went after Trump.
00:16:15.760 I did all I could.
00:16:16.860 I was there dragging him before a court to be arraigned and be forced back into our jurisdiction.
00:16:24.540 Is this a guy running for something else?
00:16:27.820 Because you almost look at it and say, Alvin Bragg was a nobody 20 minutes ago, and now
00:16:34.040 he's this internationally known name because he's taken this action against our country,
00:16:39.660 against a lot of the constitutional principles that we've held dear through the Republican
00:16:44.740 and Democrat administration.
00:16:46.200 So what do you think the long game is for this guy?
00:16:48.900 Oh, absolutely.
00:16:49.460 I think he's getting fast-tracked to some sort of position, maybe at the state level,
00:16:53.720 maybe even federally.
00:16:55.480 I mean, he's going to be the darling of the elite leftist circles in this country.
00:17:00.660 I mean, he is answering to them because he represents a constituency that is post-political.
00:17:04.960 He's not answering to the whims of his constituents who are largely, you know, apathetic and apolitical
00:17:09.920 or are not really involved.
00:17:11.020 He's answering to his donors.
00:17:12.880 He's answering to the political machine leaders that put him there to begin with.
00:17:16.420 So you make a very – you make a solid point there that that's his incentive structure.
00:17:20.420 That's his incentive structure for completely embarrassing himself by even just completely
00:17:25.560 bipartisan standards just with the merits of this indictment and this case.
00:17:29.520 I mean, he has – he's citing penal code, I think, 17510, which is a classy felony,
00:17:35.160 which basically states that the fraud needs to be in furtherance of another crime, of an
00:17:39.540 underlying crime.
00:17:40.180 But he never cites what that crime is.
00:17:41.580 I mean, this entire copy and pasted indictment is a complete joke and it's a complete slap
00:17:46.900 in the face to the American judicial system.
00:17:49.480 But he operates with impunity because he knows he can operate with impunity.
00:17:53.120 And a part of me respects the left's and the elite's just shamelessness and their – and how
00:18:01.400 blunt and blatant they are in their corruption and their politicization of our institutions.
00:18:06.580 I mean, you have to almost admire it from a power politics perspective that they're so
00:18:10.760 just cavalier in terms of how they go about their political warfare.
00:18:15.280 And I only wish we had Republican leaders, more Republican leaders such as yourself and
00:18:20.380 Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who could counter that kind of mentality and that kind 1.00
00:18:26.020 of chutzpah in New York speak with an equal vigor to push back against these injustices and
00:18:33.080 this obscene abuse of power.
00:18:34.680 It's clear Trump sees it as you do, part of a series, part of a broader plan.
00:18:40.400 I took note that in his remarks last night at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump didn't localize
00:18:45.800 his critique to Alvin Bragg.
00:18:47.860 He talked about how there is this interwoven effort with a Fulton County prosecutor, with
00:18:54.080 Jack Smith to get Trump at any cost and by any means.
00:18:58.820 You, in your role as president of the New York Young Republican Club, also talked to a number
00:19:04.420 of right and center-right leaders around the world.
00:19:07.780 And political groups, young people make their way through New York a lot.
00:19:11.880 I've been at your club where you've had folks from Europe in, understanding our politics and
00:19:16.860 sharing ideas about what's going on elsewhere.
00:19:19.840 How do you think this plays globally?
00:19:22.820 What is the global verdict on the United States crossing the Rubicon and indicting a former
00:19:29.080 president on the flimsiest of charges?
00:19:31.880 I think it makes us look like a bigger joke than we have already demonstrated over the last
00:19:37.480 few months, few years of the Biden administration.
00:19:41.000 I think they look at it like the downfall of the United States.
00:19:45.920 I mean, you have President Bukele and El Salvador coming out and boldly proclaiming that the
00:19:50.140 United States is no longer in a position to lecture anyone on human rights, on civil rights
00:19:54.780 and all the rest.
00:19:55.560 And I think it's actually doing a big disservice to the neoconservative talking point of being,
00:20:00.560 you know, this doer of good on the world stage, on this nation that's simply working to
00:20:06.300 advance these beautiful ideals of democracy and human rights and all that.
00:20:10.380 I mean, we are just showing ourselves to be the emperor with no clothes on the world
00:20:14.840 stage, that we don't practice what we preach.
00:20:17.180 I mean, we are entering in to the ranks of such notable nations such as Uganda and Ukraine
00:20:22.480 and Bolivia and Nicaragua who have jailed their opposition leaders.
00:20:26.240 This is something that simply doesn't happen in a first world civilized nation with respect
00:20:32.100 for the rule of law and civil rights.
00:20:35.760 This is the kind of action that a tin pot dictatorship takes.
00:20:39.660 So I think it's an embarrassing, you know, step for our country.
00:20:44.340 And I think people are viewing it as such.
00:20:46.060 And they're viewing it as the continued decline of American, of the American empire, of the
00:20:50.840 American global hegemony.
00:20:53.320 And it just goes to show that we are a declining empire.
00:20:55.800 And the world is noticing, and we're rapidly entering into a state of a multipolar world
00:21:01.600 order with the likes of China and Russia and India and whatever else rising up and, you know,
00:21:07.480 replacing us economically, politically, militarily and otherwise.
00:21:11.380 And, you know, they're switching their currencies.
00:21:13.260 They're switching how they do trade.
00:21:14.620 I mean, this is this is a we are a nation that refuses to accept where we're heading and where
00:21:21.120 we are currently.
00:21:21.820 And we're operating as if this is still, you know, the end of the Cold War.
00:21:25.760 We are, you know, Pax Americana.
00:21:27.420 But those days are long gone.
00:21:29.520 He knows the world.
00:21:30.460 He knows New York president of the New York Young Republican Club at Gavin Wax.
00:21:35.660 Follow him.
00:21:36.120 And, Gavin, where else are you publishing right now?
00:21:38.080 You put out some some pretty provocative prose now and again.
00:21:42.140 And tell tell let folks know where they can follow you.
00:21:44.740 Well, thank you again for having me on, Congressman.
00:21:47.220 And, yes, you could follow me and my writing.
00:21:49.900 I write for American Greatness, Town Hall, Newsmax, a few other conservative outlets.
00:21:54.840 A piece recently I wrote, there is no Trumpism without Trump, was shared by President Donald
00:22:00.960 J. Trump.
00:22:01.600 I was very honored by that.
00:22:03.380 I also write occasionally in Newsweek about the great work that President Bukele is doing
00:22:08.040 down in El Salvador and the great work President Orban, Prime Minister Orban,
00:22:11.960 is doing in Hungary and where we can look to emulate conservative policies and leadership
00:22:17.100 abroad and maybe bring it back home.
00:22:19.100 I mean, that just goes to show on to our last point that we have to now look abroad in some
00:22:23.440 respects to see leadership and success because we have so little of it here at home.
00:22:29.540 Gavin Wax, always one of my favorite people to talk to about what's going on in politics
00:22:34.160 and policy and global affairs.
00:22:36.260 Thanks for joining us on Firebrand, my friend.
00:22:38.420 Thank you, sir.
00:22:38.960 Have a good one.
00:22:39.400 Thank you.
00:22:40.960 So a lot of folks have asked serious questions about the goals and objectives of the group
00:22:47.020 of members who participated in the speakers contest in a nontraditional way.
00:22:52.660 And the Heritage Foundation recently put together a terrific little film on what we were fighting
00:22:58.400 for and how we were choosing to lower our shoulders and weigh in.
00:23:01.540 So make sure to go to the Heritage Foundation's page, give them a follow, subscribe so that
00:23:08.040 you can see more of this great content that they put out.
00:23:10.360 But since I participated in the project, I felt licensed to be able to share it with you.
00:23:15.680 Enjoy.
00:23:16.160 Take a listen.
00:23:16.600 The reading clerk will now call the roll.
00:23:23.580 Biggs.
00:23:24.580 It's money and power that control this town.
00:23:28.020 Bishop of North Carolina.
00:23:30.000 All we're talking about chaos and dysfunction in Washington because Republicans didn't sit down like Democrats do.
00:23:36.820 Crane.
00:23:37.340 It's like this cul-de-sac of greed and corruption and it just keeps going around and around.
00:23:42.920 Gates.
00:23:43.880 I felt like it doesn't even matter which party wins the majority because both sides are working for the same lobbyists.
00:23:50.420 Luna.
00:23:51.240 I had a reporter that basically accosted me in the hallway saying really vile stuff.
00:23:57.760 Perry.
00:23:58.480 One member came up to me and said, your presence disgusts me.
00:24:02.300 Roy.
00:24:03.180 So maybe the American people need to know the truth.
00:24:05.780 And it's extraordinary what happens when you tell the truth in this town.
00:24:08.640 People go, what the hell are you doing?
00:24:10.200 Why would you do that?
00:24:11.140 The fact is, we won.
00:24:13.100 Because we were telling the truth.
00:24:14.460 We were telling the truth.
00:24:32.640 Well, I think what we were fighting for was change.
00:24:40.600 Everybody knows this town is broken.
00:24:42.160 When people talk about the swamp or the establishment, I think another word I like better is the cartel, the uniparty cartel.
00:24:50.520 I think of various aspects, bureaucracy, the lobbyists, this media cartel.
00:24:54.840 All of these have produced interlocking relationships, which is why I call it a cartel.
00:24:59.300 And it doesn't matter who's in power.
00:25:01.740 Washington's a fundamentally corrupt place.
00:25:03.700 Far too often, the way that people get leadership positions or committee assignments or even have their legislation considered is all based on money.
00:25:12.920 This establishment, this swamp, is designed to protect itself.
00:25:17.140 The most corrupt time in this place is freshman orientation.
00:25:21.520 Because during freshman orientation, you get the best steak you've ever eaten, the finest wine you've ever had.
00:25:27.420 And they literally sit you down at tables with the lobbyists who lobby the committees that they know you want to serve on.
00:25:34.060 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.
00:25:45.860 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.
00:25:56.880 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.
00:26:05.600 That it had to go through something called the Rules Committee.
00:26:08.320 And there were certain members that were a part of that Rules Committee, but it was a very small fraction.
00:26:12.600 And that if they didn't like your legislation or your proposed legislation, that that wouldn't be brought to the House floor.
00:26:17.680 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.
00:26:26.280 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.
00:26:38.860 And at first I was like, is anybody here wearing a wire?
00:26:41.600 It struck me as a shakedown, but I learned that that happens every day.
00:26:45.440 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,
00:26:51.520 conservatives actually had a chance to push this party back towards, you know, its conservative roots.
00:27:00.000 The whole debate about the speaker was important on a host of different levels.
00:27:03.740 First of all, you've got to go back to why it even happened.
00:27:06.800 All the way back to last summer, before we knew what the majority breakdown was going to be,
00:27:11.060 was it going to be a five-seat majority, a 20-seat majority, whatever.
00:27:14.360 And we said, look, this is an opportunity to change the culture, change the way things were done in Washington, D.C.
00:27:21.580 We were all sitting down saying, what do we need to change about this place in terms of how the rules work?
00:27:25.540 But then the Republican conference and the House rules.
00:27:28.040 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
00:27:36.420 and push that back down towards the members, which in turn pushes that back towards their voters or their constituents.
00:27:43.240 So I went to leadership.
00:27:45.000 We started out with a simple set of rules.
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.
00:28:00.160 We were completely dismissed.
00:28:01.980 That morning on the 3rd, we had a conference.
00:28:04.260 There was a lot of discord in the room.
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.
00:28:22.380 It was extraordinarily hostile.
00:28:26.160 And that fried a lot of feelings.
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.
00:29:09.060 People didn't like the process.
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.
00:29:18.400 I mean, it was a pretty wild phone call.
00:29:19.700 Here's what's interesting.
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.
00:29:41.780 Chip, what are you doing? 1.00
00:29:42.940 You guys are, you look crazy. 1.00
00:29:44.980 You're going to ruin it for Republicans. 1.00
00:29:46.880 We're not going to choose a speaker.
00:29:48.100 We look disorganized. 0.94
00:29:49.840 I had big donors call me up, yelling and screaming, saying, this is a clown show. 0.90
00:29:53.960 And I'm like, how is it a clown show?
00:29:56.060 People standing up, offering debates, and going back and forth.
00:30:00.200 That's not a clown show.
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.
00:30:12.520 They were saying that we were terrorists.
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.
00:30:23.560 Let's face it.
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.
00:30:44.560 We always were.
00:30:45.700 And it's kind of funny.
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.
00:31:11.920 It's first thing in the morning.
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.
00:31:26.560 That's all he said, then he left.
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. 0.98
00:31:53.460 So that's the time you saw kind of the damn break. 0.95
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. 0.97
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.
00:32:19.780 And now, the hard work begins.
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.
00:33:02.360 To stop spending money we don't have.
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. 1.00
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.
00:33:48.580 My job is to represent what they want.
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.
00:34:13.700 Follow them at Daily Signal.
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 Make sure you're here for each and every Firebrand Live by subscribing and having your notifications turned on.
00:34:51.520 That means you click the little bell on Rumble or on YouTube if you're watching.
00:34:54.820 And if you're listening, do us a favor, give us a five-star rating, leave a review, let us know how much you like the show.
00:35:01.240 Thanks so much.
00:35:02.200 Roll the credits.
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00:35:32.640 Roll the edits.
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