00:00:30.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:08.000Celebrate with us and tell us your side of the story.
00:01:10.000I guess the rumors of my political death were greatly exaggerated.
00:01:15.000The last two years have been challenging.
00:01:18.000And instead of facing false allegations by running and hiding, instead of doing what a lot suggested and refusing to talk about anything, you know, I very clearly laid out what had occurred in this matter.
00:01:34.000And people were trying to extort my family for money.
00:01:38.000There was a media campaign to endlessly repeat false allegations about me in order to try to take me off the chessboard.
00:01:55.000I told people what we believed, the work that we had to do going forward in a Republican majority, that we had to keep the America first fire burning in the United States Congress.
00:02:04.000I had great allies like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan by my side, continuing to make the case to the American people that Trumpism was alive and well and that President Trump was the most inspirational leader in our movement.
00:02:19.000So I got through it, got the good news.
00:02:24.000I was in a whistleblower transcribed interview.
00:02:28.000Someone who had worked for the FBI and was there telling us the concerns that they had and some very, very concerning allegations about the FBI's leadership and their conduct when I got the news that the Department of Justice was concluding.
00:02:43.000So I have a couple of thoughts on this, Matt.
00:03:20.000Well, I remember in the days in April in 2021 when I would turn on the television and every channel, every hour was a different lawyer saying, oh my gosh, you know, Matt Gates is making the worst mistake he could ever make by denying these things and by challenging anyone to check his travel records, by saying that there was this extortion plot that had really undergirded a lot of the lies that were being falsely shared.
00:03:46.000And I just remember thinking to myself, I am not going to let them do this to me.
00:03:51.000I have seen too often people retreat from the fight.
00:03:54.000And to be honest, Charlie, I drew a great deal of inspiration from President Trump that when they were trying to smear him as a Russian agent, when they had the steel dossier allegations to try to distract and discredit a remarkable movement that he led, he kept his eye on the prize and he viewed the success of the American people as the principal objective.
00:04:16.000And he was willing to punch back when there were people lying about him.
00:04:20.000Like there was an instance where an FBI agent showed up at a disabled veteran's home at night, unannounced, who had previously worked for me.
00:04:30.000And the FBI agent had all these crazy allegations that they thought had occurred at my congressional office.
00:04:35.000And this disabled veteran who worked for me said, that was nuts.
00:04:38.000That couldn't be farther from the truth.
00:04:40.000And then when the FBI agent was challenged as to what the basis was for this, the agent told my former employee, well, we heard it from a journalist, from a media reporter.
00:04:50.000And so you had this like feedback loop with the FBI, the Department of Justice, and media outlets who were trying to destroy me.
00:04:58.000And Bannon called it divine intervention when Project Veritas, under the bold leadership of James O'Keefe, got tape of a CNN director saying that they were purposefully propagandizing my life because I'm effective.
00:05:13.000And I remember actually Charlie talking to you one time.
00:05:16.000We were at Mar-a-Laco and you walked up to me, you know, you put your hand on my shoulder and you said, Matt, your strategy is total and full aggression.
00:05:24.000I wish you the best, but they never really stopped coming for you.
00:05:28.000And I absolutely believe that you see the full field here.
00:05:33.000I don't view this as a conclusory moment on anything.
00:05:37.000I understand that based on my high-profile work, based on the importance of it, based on the agencies of government that I have jurisdiction over because I'm on the judiciary committee, there's going to be just kind of an endless effort to discredit people who hold the views I do.
00:05:54.000But we always end up being proven right in the end, right?
00:05:56.000They said we were Putin's lawyers because Trump wasn't a Russian agent.
00:06:00.000And they said we were tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists when we said that COVID originated from the Wuhan lab.
00:06:08.000And now just this past weekend, you see major reporting from the Wall Street Journal saying we were in fact right about that too.
00:06:14.000So there's like a, there's a life cycle of kind of the lies and the nonsense we hear.
00:06:44.000I believe that sinister forces are trying to take James O'Keefe off the chessboard.
00:06:49.000Do you have some thoughts on this as someone who just went through a difficult two years understanding and recognizing and acknowledging the importance of James O'Keefe?
00:06:58.000How should we think about the Project Veritas circus?
00:07:00.000Well, here's how I think of James O'Keefe.
00:07:03.000Whatever assets I acquire in my life, I am putting in my will that a portion of it is going to go to whatever organization that James O'Keefe leads.
00:07:13.000One, because I'm certain he's going to outlive me, but also because there is a type of journalism that only James O'Keefe right now is inspiring and encouraging and curating within the media landscape.
00:07:24.000This guerrilla journalism that finds truth in the most uncomfortable of places and works then to expose it.
00:07:32.000If there's no James O'Keefe, that entire vertical goes away.
00:07:37.000And I think it would be a very bad thing for our democracy or for our republic if that were to occur.
00:07:42.000Now, what I think is happening at Project Veritas is that there is a veneer, a construct that somehow James has done something wrong.
00:07:50.000And they're using that to try to seize control.
00:07:53.000And it just looks like a power grab to me.
00:07:55.000And I am entirely on the side of James O'Keefe, as are countless whistleblowers who trusted him with their story.
00:08:03.000You think about the trust that that has to annure.
00:08:08.000One of the things that the Project Veritas board put out to criticize James O'Keefe is an event that he held in Miami that was like a musical celebration of the story of Project Veritas.
00:08:20.000And I got to meet the person at that event who was the journalist who got the admission from CNN that they were lying about me and propagandizing my life.
00:08:31.000And now the Project Veritas board wants to act like that was this extravagant expense that was unworthy.
00:08:37.000But what I saw, I saw in the eyes of those insiders and those journalists who put it on the line each and every day for the truth.
00:08:44.000And they got to be thanked and they got to be celebrated.
00:08:47.000And that is something that was so worthy of the contributions that donors had made to Project Veritas.
00:08:53.000And I saw that that was what they were criticizing him for.
00:08:56.000It just struck me as a total construct.
00:08:58.000I mean, just if you take a step back outside of whatever personal envy or animosity they might have towards James O'Keefe, and you just look at this fairly, James O'Keefe has produced billions.
00:09:16.000Even a left-winger would be like, yeah, you know, he's done more to expose, to be able to, you know, challenge corruption and the deeds of darkness.
00:09:25.000And so here we are, all of a sudden the board is like, well, yeah, James O'Keefe took $150,000 in black cars.
00:09:30.000By the way, not as for his own personal wine tours in Napa Valley.
00:09:35.000This was for business use, multiple meetings a day, security death threats at him.
00:09:39.000He needed it to be able to do his job.
00:09:52.000So James O'Keefe is talking to probably a confidential source at the CDC, and he's supposed to have to worry about ordering an Uber X and being overheard by that person.
00:10:02.000I mean, the idea that you have to have secure transportation while you're running an entire organization based on confidentiality and close-knit sources.
00:10:10.000I mean, that's what the board decides to attack him with.
00:13:17.000The only love that is truly unconditional is the love between the Biden administration and Ukraine, where we are currently now funding the pension liabilities within the Ukrainian government.
00:13:29.000We have firefighters and police in this country in dilapidated areas where they wonder whether or not their pensions will be fully funded, but we can do that in Ukraine.
00:13:39.000Tomorrow, we will have leading officials at the Department of Defense before the House Armed Services Committee, and they will lay out their vision on Ukraine.
00:13:48.000And we will hear a lot of that information.
00:13:50.000One of the witnesses will be the DOD Inspector General.
00:13:56.000Have we followed U.S. law with the monitoring end-to-end of U.S. materiel and munitions and military equipment into Ukraine?
00:14:11.000And if they are honest, the answer will be no, because we have not followed our own laws regarding monitoring and tracking as we've sent this equipment into hostility areas.
00:14:23.000And then you look at these sums of money.
00:14:26.000It is outrageous to think the way we had to beg fellow Republicans in the United States Senate for a billion here, a billion there to secure our own border.
00:14:38.000And now when it comes to Ukraine's border, unconditional.
00:14:42.000It's more like unconditional surrender, frankly.
00:14:45.000How many of your Republican colleagues are willing to actually take a stand against this?
00:14:50.000It's a growing number, but it's certainly not a majority of the majority.
00:14:54.000When people like Chairman Mike McCall go out and say on the Sunday shows, well, you know, Matt Gates and his band of isolationists are in the minority, he's right.
00:15:40.000We just saw an American injured in Syria.
00:15:43.000Like, what are we doing in the Syrian civil war?
00:15:46.000Someone explained to me what we're trying to win there.
00:15:48.000And so even though I'm in the minority, I think I'm going to do everything I can in this Congress to force votes.
00:15:54.000And let's force these Democrats and Republicans.
00:15:57.000By the way, the previously anti-war Democrats, now totally part of the war machine.
00:16:02.000Let's have everybody take a vote on whether or not you think we should have troops in Syria or whether or not we should have people that are a part of the supply chain for the Abrams and the High Mars and the like that we're sending to Ukraine.
00:16:16.000And how many days, Charlie, until the F-16s are going?
00:16:19.000I mean, it seems like there's a constant pattern here.
00:16:22.000First, Biden says if we send the Stinger missiles and the High Mars, it's going to be World War III, then we do it.
00:16:29.000Then they say, oh, we're not going to do the M1 Abrams.