Transcripts. Bannon’s War Room. Congressman Matt Gaetz: Kevin McCarthy's Not Suitable For Speaker of the House, Won't Have 218 Votes in January. November 14, 2022.
Topic: New Leadership in the House. Guest Matt Gaetz. November 14, 2022.
Transcripts from Bannon’s War Room on Rumble: Congressman Matt Gaetz: Kevin McCarthy's Not Suitable For Speaker Of The House, Won't Have 218 Votes In January
Published November 14, 2022.
Clip# Charlie Kirk Show
Charlie Kirk:
No, no what I'm saying though is that if it came down to supporting someone like Kevin or in the mold of Kevin..
Congressman Matt Gaetz:
You know is there any that were to happen Charlie that would solely be by Kevin's hand, because once five Republicans stand up and say we're never voting for Kevin then if Kevin chooses to persist it would be him putting our majority...
Charlie Kirk:
Who would those five people be?
Congressman Matt Gaetz:
Well, I think that they would be the people that reliably adhere to the promises that they make to their voters. I'm not here to like out or dox anybody. I'll let people make their own announcements and their own time.
I'm making my announcement which is that I'm not voting for Kevin McCarthy. I'm not voting for him tomorrow. I'm not voting for him on the floor, and I am certain that there is a critical mass of people who hold my precise view. And so, the sooner we can sort of dispense with the notion that Kevin's going to be speaker then we can get to the important work of actually looking at who are the people that Brian Fitzpatrick and Matt Gaetz can agree on.
END of Clip
Steve Bannon:
Okay we're bringing in Matt Gaetz tonight. He couldn't himself he had to break it on the Charlie Kirk show, but we love Charlie Kirk. He’s got a big audience. We have a bigger audience but hey I’m just saying. Congressman Gaetz, your closest ally, in fact she said today that you were her closest friend in Congress and her closest ally came on the show today and made a fairly compelling case of why your other firebrand wingman is actually for Kevin McCarthy, that would be Marjorie Taylor Green.
Can you compare and contrast to her thinking to what you're thinking. We know Andy Biggs has announced that he looks like he's announced he's running for the Speakership also. Can you walk us compare and contrast you and Congressman Green?
Congressman Matt Gaetz:
Well Marjorie Taylor Green is my friend and she will continue to be my friend long after this leadership issue is resolved, but we see this very differently.
Right now, we are in a process of elimination paradigm, because as the math is working out, any five people five America First Congress members, five more moderate Republicans can get together and functionally veto any one person as leader.
So, within the republican conference we are going to have to have a coalition governance not by virtue of my choice or anyone else’s but by virtue of how these elections are getting sorted out. We're taking losses in California where we should have won and frankly, we got wins in New York State that no one ever believed would happen. And while I deeply care about Marjorie Taylor Green, I see what a warrior and a fighter she's in the movement.
My concern is that we cannot trust Kevin McCarthy. This is the same Kevin McCarthy who said that I was a danger to others because I verbally criticized Liz Cheney. This is the same Kevin McCarthy who spent 10s of millions of dollars in primaries against America First candidates and then when people like Caroline Levitt and Joe Kent prevailed in their primaries, they were in a worse shape to go and face the general election because Kevin McCarthy had spent so much money against them in the primary.
I mean I look at Yvette Harold in in New Mexico who's only going to lose by a small handful of votes and what if instead of attacking Republicans and supporters of President Trump we put those 10s of millions of dollars behind her candidacy. So, I think there were strategic decisions that were wrong. I think those strategic decisions illuminate a lack of trust and whatever Kevin has promised Marjorie Taylor Green, I guarantee you this, at the first opportunity he will ZAP her faster than you could say Jewish space laser and I wish that wasn't the case, but it is the conduct, and it is the pattern and practice of Kevin McCarthy over years that showcase this.
And there's going to be a vote tomorrow and Kevin's going to overwhelmingly win that vote but they're going to be dozens of Republicans who do not vote for Kevin McCarthy tomorrow. Now Kevin has had years to earn their vote. He's had years to earn it and maybe he earned Marjorie Taylor Greens, but the fact that there are dozens of people as of tomorrow who aren't ready to vote for Kevin McCarthy, you have to somehow believe that magically between tomorrow and January 3rd he's going to make up the ground that he hasn't made-up with every tool he's already had as leader during the election cycle.
And he did all he could to get rid of the America First people but there are enough of us around where we would rather deal with someone who might be a little more moderate than our way of thinking if we have someone who is honest with us and who has agency and will work with us to unlock the potential of all of the members.
Steve Bannon:
I want to make sure people understand, I want go back to a little bit of history. This is not something that just kind of came up over the last couple of days even from last Tuesday. You were on this show and correct me for wrong I think it was actually in August and you walked through a scenario that say hey, look if it's anywhere between you know five and eight total pickups you know over or not just pickups over the 218, Kevin McCarthy's not going to be speaker and what everything you said kind of became true.
How did you know back then? What was the indication to you that the strategy he had for actually building a bigger majority you know going after Caroline Levitt, going after Anna Paulina Luna, going after Harold, going after Joe Kent and others. How did you know at the time because I tell people hey think of what think of Gatez, this is a called shot and they're in the situation now that everything he said was going to come to pass has come to pass Matt Gaetz.
Congressman Matt Gaetz:
Well, I see how Kevin McCarthy treats people and I see how he treats the institution. It is not a bug of the system that we never get time to review legislation that a small group of people control the decision making in Washington, it is a feature of that system, and it is a system that Kevin McCarthy has fully embraced.
The best defense people give of Kevin is that he is the LeBron James of special interest fundraising, and I will give him that. There has never been anyone better at raising like $500 million to go deploy around the country. The problem is when you don't have the value set to undergird that. And when you don't have the tactical ability to make decisions that grows the majority to at least meet expectations then ultimately, you're not the person to be the Speaker of the House.
We need a fresh start, we need a new person, we need to turn the page on the leadership that is underperformed expectations and that have led us down and I don't care if they raise a billion dollars. I don't care if they go wash the car of every lobbyist in Washington DC. I want to make sure that we have people who are honest with the membership and look I've been fielding calls from people who are not Freedom Caucus who are not far right but who feel they've been lied to and let down.
And I think the call for a change to Kevin McCarthy will be very evident in the number of people who still can't vote for him. That's what the McCarthy like loyalists can't really explain to me, when like you know 20,30 people don't vote for him tomorrow what's going to get people to vote for him by January when they weren't willing to vote for him now. And the only vote that matters is in January. Everything up to that is you know ranges between preliminary and perfunctory. On January 3rd we elect the speaker and if you got 218 votes you get to be the Speaker of the House. Kevin McCarthy does not have 218 votes today and he won't have it on January 3rd.
Steve Bannon:
Matt, can you hang on for one second, I just want to hold you through the break.
Congressman Gaetz, what is your objective? You've said now for months this is not something you just thought up. You said for months that this must happen, and it will happen. It's a cold shot but I think people that are still uncertain about what is your objective? What do you want the conference to do? What do you want the speaker to do? What is the new House of Representatives going to do against the Biden regime Sir?
Congressman Matt Gaetz:
New leadership is the tactic, but it is not an end unto itself. Frankly I think we need new leadership in the Senate where my fellow Floridian Marco Rubio is pushing to delay any election that would benefit Mitch McConnell. I think we need new leadership at the Republican National Committee. And certainly, we need new leadership in the House.
What does that unlock for us? This is something the War Room Posse might not want to hear, but because of the bad decisions of Kevin McCarthy because of the foolish tactics on the campaign trail because of the commitment to America which was like something that Frank Luntz wrote on the back of a bar napkin more than it was a bold agenda, because of all those things we underperformed expectations. And that lack of performance is going to mean that you're not going to get everything you want out of this Republican majority and neither am I.
And I'm very disappointed by that, but we have to maximize our opportunity to make gains where we can, and we have to understand the features of leverage. We are going to be the ballast against admitting Puerto Rico as the 51st state or expanding the Supreme Court or just a new flash flood of government entitlement spending to pay people not to work in our economy and in our country. They'll want to do everything they can to green light a bunch of illegal aliens toward citizenship. And we'll have to block that.
So, in a way the incoming Speaker has to beat the defensive coordinator for the American people on a lot of those fronts. Where can we play offense? The investigations. And what I know from Kevin McCarthy is that the truth is not in him when it comes to these investigations.
Look do you really believe, is there a single American who really believes that Kevin McCarthy is going to be aggressive on investigations when it was his idea to get President Trump to accept a censure after January 6th. This guy has had tougher talk for President Trump after January 6th that he's had for the national security apparatus that potentially was increasing the criminal acuity of the day.
So, when the chips are down you really see whether or not people have the instinct of fight or flight. And my objective is to have a Republican conference that is willing to fight not run away, not concede not give up ground. And so, to do that we cannot have someone who lies to us.
We cannot have someone who is going to dole out these subpoenas ever so slowly, refused to enforce them, slow walk the inquiries that absolutely need to happen that in a just world would result in the impeachment of Ali Mayorkas and others as well, by the way, that just would be my leadoff hitter. But when it comes to our leash to be able to do what we have to do here's what you got to know, just like Chuck Schumer couldn't go much further than where Joe Manchin was willing to take him, we might not be able in the House Republican majority to go much further than where Don Bacon and Brian Fitzpatrick and Dave Joyce and other members of our moderate caucus are willing to go.
So, rather than play a bunch of games and lie to the American people and tell them we're going to do a bunch of stuff that we aren’t really going to do which is the embodiment of the McCarthy strategy, I say let's sit down let's build that coalition government, let's bring in the moderate Republicans the America first Republicans, Freedom Caucus members, representatives from some of the larger states that constitute our majority and let's go build the operational strategy that gets this economy back on track, seals the border and ensures that we unleash American energy.
And while doing that the very investigations we would pursue would showcase how the corrupt decisions of the Biden administration are harming the American people. We could all get on board with that, but it is going to be the slow boat to China with Kevin McCarthy. It is going to be the Paul Ryan, Trey Gowdy playbook that he was very willing to run plays out of during his entire time in leadership in which he will not deviate from today.
He'll tell you today that he's going to do those things but I'm telling you when the chips are down it's not going to happen. And the reason I know I'm going to be successful in ensuring we get a different option than Kevin McCarthy is because I have like way more than double the votes I need to ensure that he is not speaker, because we have such a slim majority as a result of his own choices.
It's sort of poetic, as a matter of fact, that these people put the handcuffs on themselves by spending all this money attacking America First candidates, squandering the resources that people had given us to preserve the majority and then making it harder for our Republican nominees to come together and battle the Democrats.
Battling the Democrats that's what we have to do, and we have to build a strategy that is an inclusive strategy, maybe even with people who aren't Matt Gaetz flavored Republicans. I'm willing to acknowledge that that has to happen. I'm willing to acknowledge that the viewpoints of people from states that don't look like Florida, from districts that don't look like mine, are going to be just as dispositive on this process as my own views. But what I can say for certain is that Kevin McCarthy is not going to be Speaker of the House.
Steve Bannon:
What's so powerful about this is that you know in the fog of war right, it's critical to kind of keep your eye right on it. You've had your eye right on it the entire time. You've been the one guy that's been right. Before I let you go, I just want to pull the camera back for a second.
Politics is the art of the practical, the possible and you just walked through I think of a master class in that. But for Matt Gaetz when you look at where the country is in in a perfect world, what are the one or two things you think has to happen in the next year on Capitol Hill sir?
Congressman Matt Gaetz:
This government has been weaponized against the people of our country. We have seen it in school board meetings, we have seen it in the unity of purpose between big government and big media and big tech, we've seen it in the deprivations of our liberties.
So, the number one thing is that we have to stop our own government from the inward turning of these exquisite authorities against our fellow Americans. And it really is like the social credit score that they're trying to create for all of us in the financial sector and the political sector and in the social sector. So, I think that is number one.
And the other thing you know taxes can rise and fall, regulations can be implemented and repealed, but what is happening on our border right now in a lot of ways is unidirectional and linear. You let 4 million people into this country illegally and then they start having kids who somehow get treated just as if they're as American as you and I, and then they start pulling on the chain of chain migration, you start to change this country in ways where even a new government, a new focused administration would have a very hard time turning back some of those tides.
So, I would say let's get our government focused on our enemies not our citizens and then let's ensure that this border is secure. If we could focus on that, I really think our economic conditions would improve, our political conditions would improve and we would be able you have the wins in 2024 that we deserved and should have had in 2022.
Bad strategy bad tactics led us to this moment. And you know what in most areas of life if you screw up and underperform you don't get promoted. Only in politics, only in the corrupt swamp of Washington DC can you totally blow it and still even be in line for a promotion.
I think that a lot almost all these people in leadership should be swept out, turn the page fresh start, new focus, protect our fellow Americans, secure the border, right the ship with the economy and get back to campaigning for a Republican in 2024.
Steve Bannon:
Congressman Gaetz, how could people follow you on social media because over the next, people should follow anyways, but the next 72 hours specifically how do people follow you?
Congressman Matt Gaetz:
I've got a podcast called Firebrand where I give regular updates regarding leadership races and other policy matters before the Congress. Folks can follow me at Matt Gaetz and @MattGaetz or @ Rep Matt Gaetz on just about all platforms.
Steve Bannon:
Congressman Gaetz, thank you very much. Honored to have you here.
Congressman Matt Gaetz:
Thank you, good to be back with the honey badger, let's go get’em
Steve Bannon:
Yes Sir
END
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