Why Matt Gaetz Is Trump's Most Important Cabinet Pick
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Hey everybody, it's in the Charlie Kirk show. Senator Ron Johnson joins the program to break down the latest news of the U.S. Senate, then Darren Beattie about Matt Gaetz and the path towards confirmation. Email me as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and become a member, members.charliekirk.com and join us at AmFest. That's amfest.com, A-M-F-E-S-T.com.

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amfest.com, A-M-F-E-S-T.com. Email me as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

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Joining us now is one of the best we have in the U.S. Senate, Senator Ron Johnson. Senator, welcome to the program. Senator, I first want to talk about the election. President Trump won the state of Wisconsin nearly by as much as you won your re-election, by the way. It was almost the exact same number. I was looking at it the other day. Unfortunately, Eric Hovde lost.

fell short. And there was definitely some unusual activity with late night ballot dumping in Milwaukee. What is your reaction to the Eric Hovde race? It looked as if he was trending great and then Milwaukee did what Milwaukee does. Your reaction, Senator Johnson?

Well, first of all, that Tuesday night was triumphant when Wisconsin sank the putt that won the President's Cup for President Trump. So it was a lot of fun being there on the ground. We're the ones who put him over the top. And we were very hopeful with Eric Huvde. The difference is President Trump was up by enough votes to, you know, withstand the ballot dump from Milwaukee Central Count. Now, what I can say is, you know, when we...

came into the election night party there with all the data folks. I got there and we found out that the central count had not secured the tabulator machines. There's a door in the back. It's supposed to be locked and sealed. There was no procedure to make sure that happened. So two o'clock in the afternoon, a Republican election observer observed that they stopped the counting. They'd already tabulated 30,000 ballots. They segregated those. So

myself and the chairman of the Republican party of Wisconsin went down there, uh, talk to, uh, RNC lawyers to our election observers, uh,

Got a handle on what the situation was. We knew that as a result of that, it was going to take them longer and they were going to have a late night ballot dump. But I will say that our observers were very confident that the count was going to be accurate. What was feeding into this is the head of the Democrat Party of Wisconsin the day before had been on MSNBC.

saying that we're going to see this red mirage early in the evening, then late early in the morning, we're going to overtake him, the blue wave. It's just like you couldn't say something that reduced confidence in the election more than he did. And plus, we had slow counts in, I think, Racine and Green Bay. So it's just it gets it just creates suspicion.

My concern, again, I think it was an accurate count. I think in the end, Eric Huff Day realized, you know, we could rerun the ballots. You're going to get the same count. The concern in Wisconsin is how many illegitimate votes are there? You know, were there illegal aliens? No.

Have the Democrats developed a system for registering voters that either don't exist or voting for people that never vote. I mean, that we just we don't have a handle on that. And in order to challenge somebody, you've got to do it individually, you know, individual registration by individual registration. It's almost impossible to do. So what we need to do is we need to do a post-election audit. I would love to have RNC lawyers pay attention to this because, Charlie, we've got a crucial issue.

Wisconsin Supreme Court election here in April that we must win. If we don't, the court is forever, in my lifetime, probably going to be less

led by radical left judicial activists, and we may never have an opportunity to win the 10 electoral votes in Wisconsin again or ever get a U.S. Senate seat. So it's crucial we understand what happened. You know, we have wards that are voting at a higher, more than 100% versus registered voters, but we have same-day registration. So it's entirely possible, but we just never do the post-election audits in detail to determine, okay, these are the people that voted,

You know, is it a legitimate vote or not? You know, when I, when I entered politics in 2010, you know, the, the, the basic meme was, well, every Republican candidate is going to start at a X percent disadvantage because Democrats cheat. It's just like kind of an accepted reality. I,

I don't know what that percentage is. I'm not sure that's true. But what I do know is we need to audit the results and we need to be dedicated to auditing the results because it never happens. Once the election is done, it's certified and people move on. And let's face it, for the political consultants, there's no money in auditing these results. So we need to do that. Yeah. So just two points here that I think is really important, Senator. The first of which is that

I don't doubt that if we do a recount, the results would be nearly the same. The point of which is who filled out these ballots and what was the chain of custody. Can you elaborate on that, Senator? Because a recount is just recounting the actual ballots in the system. The question is, where did they come from? And was the person who is actually assigned to that ballot the designee, the person who filled it out? Right. So the chain of custody, once those absentee ballots are received,

We're pretty confident of that. Again, we've got observers there. It worked in 2022. Again, the hiccup here was they didn't have the back of those tabulators sealed, so they had to start the process all over again. I made sure that they maintained the record of the 30,000 ballots to make sure those counts would be accurate. We haven't seen the results of that. But again, in the end, our observers believe that that was an accurate count and those ballots were accounted for. What we don't know is the person who filled out that APSE ballot, is that a legitimate voter?

is,

Is that an illegal alien using a driver's license in Wisconsin? Now, you can't really distinguish whether that's a citizen or not a citizen when they use that driver's license to register to vote. So that's the unknown. That's the thing that's very difficult to determine either before or after election. That's why we need to do a pretty detailed audit of these wards and take a look at, okay, who are the people that registered on the same day? Are those legitimate voters? And Charlie, you have to do that pretty fast because people move.

So again, this is very difficult to really audit, really difficult to understand the truth, which is why in the end you can commit fraud and not get caught. Let's play cut 34. This is Eric Hovde describing some of this. Let's play cut 34. Like many of my supporters, I was shocked by what unfolded on election night. At 1 a.m., I was receiving calls of congratulations, and based on the models, it appeared I would win the Senate race.

Then at 4 a.m., Milwaukee reported approximately 108,000 absentee ballots, with Senator Baldwin receiving nearly 90% of those ballots. Statistically, this outcome seems improbable. And so, just any other further comment on that, Senator?

Well, again, we knew the number of those ballots early in the evening, 108,000 votes. Actually, I think at the start of the day, the news, 108,000 absentee ballots they're going to process. So it wasn't like those are mystery ballots. And this is central Milwaukee. And you're going to get a very high percentage of those ballots going for the Democrat candidate. So, again, that wasn't a surprise to me. What you need to do in Wisconsin is just true, which is why Ben Winkler can predict that you're going to have

a lead and then it's going to be eaten into once Milwaukee Central County gets reported. You just need to build up enough lead. I think President Trump was leading by 125,000 votes. So when that ballot dump occurred, again, those are the right number of ballots. We had the chain of custody on those things. He was able to survive that dump. Eric Huffington was just trailing him by about 60,000 votes and he couldn't survive that onslaught of the Democrat votes.

Senator, can you just reiterate what you mentioned? Because I think it's very important because we will be doing multiple visits and spending serious money for the Wisconsin Supreme Court seat this spring. Democrats typically are able to win these one-off elections. What, again, is the significance of holding on to or at least winning the Supreme Court seat?

The Democrats have a permanent majority of leftists on that court. They'll redistrict. We'll probably lose House seats. And they'll set up the system where it's going to be very difficult to win the electoral vote. So it's crucial. It's ground game, ground game, ground game. Like your organization helped turn us out. It's knocking on doors. Again, there's no money in the consultants for ground game. They like spending ads. We need to spend money on an even more robust ground game.

because last spring election, when we lost that Supreme Court race, Dan Kelly only got 800,000 votes. In an off-year election, Walker and I got 1.2 to 1.3. There's no reason why we can't turn out 1.2, 1.3, which would have overcome the million votes that the Democrat Supreme Court Justice got last April. So it's ground game, ground game, ground game. That's how we win.

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Senator, what is your opinion and reaction to President Trump's cabinet selections? And do you plan to support them? Well, I think elections matter. And I think presidents ought to be able to fill out their administrations with the people that they want to serve in the administration. So my bias is always going to be to support President Trump's selections. And we've got a confirmation process. Unless there's something incredibly disqualifying, I'm going to support his nominations.

I'm thrilled to hear that. Thank you, Senator. And so what can we do? Because you were back there in 2016, 2017. What can be done to make sure that we have more urgency to be able to fill the cabinet? Back in 16 or 17, it took us nearly two years

to get President Trump a full cabinet. Do you feel as if it will be better this time around? And if so, why? Well, I think there will be pressure on Senator Thune to make sure that we expeditiously handle these through regular order. I think it'll all depend on, you know, how much of a backlog do we have? Well, we're just, you know, again, takes time to, you know, even nominate people. So if the backlog builds, I mean, I really don't have a problem with recess appointments, you know, from my standpoint. Uh,

I think the confirmation process has gotten completely out of control. You know, 1200 plus 1400 individuals had to be confirmed. I mean, that's, that is ridiculous. Whether you're Republican or Democrat Senator or president, you, you should be able to staff your administration. Now,

the major cabinet picks a lifetime appointments. You know, I don't know exactly where to cut off the line, but I mean, 12 to 1400 is just absurd. So I personally don't have a problem with the recess appointments, but we should go through the process. And for the major cabinet picks, it definitely has to go through a confirmation process. I agree. Senator, one thing to entertain is potentially changing of Senate rules to allow concurrent nominations.

especially for the lower level, the Senate confirmations that sometimes just go through voice vote before we even get to recess appointments. I would love to see that potentially entertained. Can you educate our audience on what a recess appointment is and what it would take and require to do such an appointment? Well, the Supreme court has now ruled what a recess is. And I think you have to be on recess. No, uh,

And any type of procedures going on for 10 days. And again, this was part of the Constitution when people traveled by horse and buggy and they had to go back to their farms and they were out of session for quite some time and administration had to staff itself. But again, back then, government was far smaller and the number of people had to be appointed is far less.

So, again, that's that's a tool that is available. And, you know, from I do think we need to be wary about changing Senate rules because eventually Democrats come get the majority as well. And, you know, we do want the capability of blocking some of their awful nominations ourselves. So I would caution people about changing Senate rules.

And we just have to win the elections, Charlie. That's the best anecdote here. We can't let Democrats gain control of the Senate again or they will eliminate the filibuster. I realize that we got to do that so we can pass our priorities, but they just end up getting a ping pong effect. And what the filibuster has stopped

in terms of awful liberal policies that expand government, it's well worth maintaining that. I totally agree. What I was talking about with changing Senate rules was just allowing concurrent nominations, but I don't know if that might involve filibusters or not. So I will yield to the parliamentarian and your wisdom there. In closing here, Senator, legislatively, back in 2016, 2017, we spent a lot of our political capital, as you remember, trying to

trying to repeal Obamacare, only to come short because of one thumb down. What do you think should be the top priority for the president and his agenda through the U.S. Senate that realistically we can get done before the summer? Well, I mean, we need to prevent a massive tax increase that automatically takes effect in 2026. That's got to be a top priority. I think also passing the promises made that President Trump made when it comes to taxes is important as well.

I'm going to be completely supportive of Elon Musk's, the Department of Government Efficiency. I'd love to work very closely with him, just showing the $1.3 trillion of all the mandatory spending that we can address during reconciliation. We can't use reconciliation for normal appropriation counts, which is kind of bizarre.

But we got $1.3 trillion of other mandatory spending, not Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, that the Uniparty has literally transferred out of discretionary spending, put it in the mandatory category, so it just remains on automatic pilot. That ought to be addressed as well. We've got to reduce government spending. We've got to reduce the size, scope, cost of government and its influence over our lives. It's got to be a top priority. Senator, thank you for your leadership as always. Great to see you. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

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Joining us now is Darren Beattie from Revolver.News, that is Revolver.News editor in chief. Darren, welcome to the program. Darren, as you know, we are fighting very hard to try to confirm Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. Before we go into the specifics here of the baseless accusations that are being hurled towards Gaetz, please build out the significance of this nomination and the importance of getting him confirmed.

Absolutely. You know, I think it's no mystery to us what's been going on basically since Trump stepped into the political arena. There has been

corruption of our institutions across the board, a repurposing of our institutions away from their proper and legitimate function toward basically political suppression against the enemies of the corrupt regime. But when it comes to the intelligence world, which we've reported on extensively and talked about,

There's almost a sense in which you expect the intelligence world to be a little bit dirty. We only would hope and ask that at least sometimes they play dirty on behalf of the interests of Americans rather than conspiring against Americans. But there is an inherent dirtiness to the work of the intelligence world. Justice is very different.

Justice really cuts to the core of our self-conception as Americans. And I would put the corruption of the Justice Department and the weaponization

of the Justice Department in a different category entirely for that reason. It was only when the Biden-Harris administration began egregiously attacking and bringing sham legal cases against political enemies that you started to hear this term "banana republic" bandied about to refer to our once great nation. And there's a reason for that. And so I think

Justice is the precondition, setting the Department of Justice aright, cleaning out the filth in Department of Justice, restoring legitimacy to our justice system and law and order.

That is a precondition for the broader work that we need to do across the board in terms of reorienting the bureaucracies as such. In other words, if justice isn't fixed, there will be no draining of the swamp. As far as why Matt Gaetz is the indispensable man for this indispensable work,

There's nobody in the country that better combines not only to Trump and the MAGA agenda, exceptional legal acumen. And also, we might get into this a little bit, he has more so than anyone, arguably than Trump, felt the personal result, the personal brunt of the very corruption and weaponization that he will soon be in a position to address and correct.

So for that reason, I think that Venn diagram of personal stake, intellectual capability and expertise, and unwavering loyalty to Trump and the MAG agenda, you need that

in an attorney general, we learn the first time around what happens when you have an attorney general who does not meet those criteria, a disaster. I think it's fair to say that attorneys general in the previous administration amounted to the Achilles heel. And it's not just about setting justice or right. If you have an attorney general who's not willing to fight

that can cause problems that compromise the entire agenda writ large because all of your bandwidth is sucked up, for instance, in dealing with Russia nonsense or this or that. Trump understands this now, and that's why my understanding is

He is all in on Gates. He understands this is the appointment that sets the tone, sets the tenor, sets the narrative in which we are to understand all of the other appointments. It is the indispensable appointment and that's why it's inevitable. Attorney General Matt Gates is inevitable. That is beautifully put. Matt Gates is smart, energetic, aggressive, and loyal to both Trump personally and the agenda.

Darren, very quickly on just this, and I want to get into the details. We must repeat that

He can be confirmed. There is this DC trick that is happening where they're trying to kill it before consideration. And there is no basis for this. In fact, I can name five US senators that I've been communicating with that have all said, you know what? If it comes up for a vote, I will vote for it. And so they want to try to kill it without a vote. Why is that, Darren? By the way, anytime you guys hear, oh, six senators won't vote, ask for their names. Say, what are their names?

You notice that? What is the importance or the significance of that, Darren? They're trying to kill it with anonymous sourcing. Why?

Well, look, as far as these sham allegations, which I don't even really want to dignify enough to the point of discussing them, but if we were going to address them, I think it suffices to say that we had an extremely aggressive and corrupt Justice Department that basically prosecuted any grandma who sat within 10 meters of

of the US Capitol. And yet these people absolutely hate Gates. They hate him. The only person they hate more is Trump. If they had something on him, they would have used it by now. There's nothing. It's a big nothing burger. That's why you only hear smears and innuendo and this vague this or vague that.

It's you, these rumors, the purpose of the rumors that are manifestly false is to serve as a pretext for weak people who are afraid to put someone like Gates in because they know that he's the indispensable man for Trump. And so we cannot accept any wavering from senators. This is a line in the sand. Trump has made it clear. You support Gates or you are completely done.

You're completely done. And by the way, I'd just like to say we need to put this to senators very starkly. And I think they will do the right thing once they understand the stakes involved and once they understand the intensity of our commitment here. But also, I think we need

The conservative legal community needs to step up. I pointed this out in other occasions. You know, Trump has done a lot for the conservative legal world, for organizations like the Federalist Society and, you know, that kind of legal establishment in many ways. And I think that these organizations ought also to step up.

and provide reassurances and support that could be very helpful for the senators coming to terms with what needs to be done. So let's go into this, though. The senators that are against Gates, they're afraid to speak out. And so, Darren, the plan is to just keep on marching and to call their bluff. Would you agree?

Yeah, if there's anything, put it out. There is nothing. That's I mean, we've established that by virtue. You think they would have been holding on to something? Actually, if there were anything by now, it's not as though Gates is appointed attorney general and all of a sudden the system hates him. The system's hated him for a very long time because he's gained prominence as one of the most effective, if not the most effective supporter of Donald Trump and his agenda.

So this idea that, oh, we can't support him because of this or that, that's simply a pretext. It's simply a lie and it needs to be called out. And if they say there's something, well, put it forth then. They all know that there's nothing. It's a weak excuse, cannot be accepted, will not be accepted.

Additionally, Darren, I know that we have you on to talk about Matt Gaetz, but I kind of want to talk about some of the other appointments. Tulsi Gabbard becoming DNI director. This one on the Intel side, I think is equally as significant. And honestly, I think she actually has a tougher road to confirmation than Matt Gaetz.

And I'll tell you why, because while some of these red senators will not be thrilled with Matt Gaetz, the domestic stuff on the AG Department of Justice is bad, but it's, I don't think, nearly as secret as what's going on with DNI. You might disagree, Darren. I think Tulsi has one of the toughest lips of all the appointees. Your reaction?

Look, I love both of them. I'd have to, I mean, if we're going to have to pick one, I think the AG is something more critical. We've seen what happens when you don't have an AG that's 100% committed. It can cripple the entire presidency.

But absolutely, I'm thrilled with Tulsi's appointment. She can get confirmed. She must get confirmed. Just to give an example, because now we have this ridiculous escalatory action, thanks to Biden's last minute lame duck decision to give these missiles to Ukraine.

One repeated pattern that we've seen from intelligence officials, military industrial complex officials in the last administration was it's absolutely critical who's responsible for the intelligence briefing, who's responsible for providing these reports. Because what the old game is, they fudge the briefings, they provide selective information, they only show what they think will be most likely to convince Trump

to engage in some kind of escalatory action that is totally unnecessary or perhaps even counterproductive. That's one of the key tactics that the intelligence community uses in order to subvert the Trump agenda and lead America kind of sleepwalking into some major conflict. That's why I think it's one of the many reasons that it's very critical to have somebody like Tulsi in charge of the intelligence at the top,

who can prevent that sort of manipulation with the dire consequences that it invites. Election Day 2024 is in our rearview mirror and conservatives are fired up that President Trump heading back to the White House in January. But our fight isn't over and I'm asking you for your help. Conservatives for lower health care costs are warning us that Big Pharma and the far left are scrambling to fast track a big government scheme to eliminate free market forces and health care before the GOP can take control of the White House and Congress.

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So Darren, can we speak for a second about the timeline? Hearings are going to start in early January. We are going to have a major fight of confirmations. The grassroots need to enjoy this victory that Donald Trump earned and everyone in this audience earned. And then it's battle stations ready in early January.

Yes, 100%. I mean, we have to be absolutely committed. We cannot accept any one of these confirmations not going through. It's as plain as day. Trump went through everything, all of the slings and arrows, starting from 2016 all the way on, you name it.

They threw everything at him. And at the last stages, that included an avalanche of politically motivated legal cases and even a bullet to the head. He went on to win a resounding popular vote victory, an historic popular vote victory. And with that,

an unequivocal mandate. At the very least, the Republican senators should give him the people that he needs to do the job that he was voted to do. The significance of this is immense. And confirming the cabinet, personnel is policy. Personnel is policy. It's going to require a pressure campaign. And all we have to do is have Republican senators actually listen to their voters. Quite a concept.

and to actually fulfill the mandate. Darren, if you had to describe what is the mandate that the voters gave Donald Trump? The mandate is to clean up our government and restore legitimacy to our government and set America. I keep saying the stakes of this are not just a politically successful second term, which I fully expect.

The stakes of this are much longer, much deeper, much more powerful. The stakes of this are if we do this right and we need the right people to do it right. If we do this right, we're setting America up for success and freedom into the end of the century. This is setting America up, which was so close to the bottom of the trash heap.

We've been brought so far down into the sewage pit by people like Biden, by people like Harris, by people like Merrick Garland. And I can go on and on and on to the point that we're on a trajectory to being worse than a third world country because we don't even have some of the freedoms of third world countries.

We have the squalor, but none of the freedom. Worst of both worlds. That's where we were headed. This is a singular opportunity to set America aright, not just for this term,

but for the remainder of the century and beyond. That's what's at stake. And that's why it's so critical to have the right people for the job. But you have people like Elon Musk, Vivek, Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard. It's actually a possibility. And that's why we need to be 100% committed. No compromises, not wavering on anything.

We need to make it very clear there will be Armageddon for any senator who does not step in line. In closing here, how big of a deal has the liberation of Twitter and it becoming X has been for the information warfare? I think that was a development of civilizational importance. I don't think Elon is exaggerating when he talks in those terms.

That changed the entire game as far as censorship. We have now a fleet free flow of information on the most important public square in the world.

Elon stepping into the arena in the way that he did. And he understood, he was smart enough to understand you can't restore free speech to X and then stop there. There is already a target on his back. And so it became existential for him to go all the way and go all in on Trump's victory, which he did. And he did successfully. And now given his track record of success and courage,

I fully expect him to be phenomenally successful in his endeavors with Doge to cut trillions of dollars of waste and poison out of our glutted federal budget. Darren, excellent work as always. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. Thanks so much for listening and God bless. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.