Congressman Matt Gaetz - Firebrand

A BOMBARDIER BOOKS BOOK

An Imprint of Post Hill Press

ISBN: 978-1-64293-764-0

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-765-7

Firebrand:

Dispatches from the Front Lines of the MAGA Revolution

2020 by Congressman Matt Gaetz

All Rights Reserved

Cover photo by SG

Cover art by Cody Corcoran

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press

New York Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

This book is unapologetically dedicated
to my countryand the Firebrands everywhere
who love and protect her.

CONTENTS

I didnt show up to sell out. Politicians almost always say the right things while campaigning. Thats not hard if youre a halfway competent actorand all politicians are actors.

Politics, they say, is show business for ugly people. The real question is who writes the scripts and produces the acts. You are governed by the theater geeks from high school, who went on to make it big booking guests on the talk shows. Ignore them and theyll ignore you, and youll go nowhere fast. The hairdressers and makeup ladies and cameramen pick our presidents. As well they should. They are closer to the viewers and therefore the voters.

When Sen. Ted Cruz lost the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, he whined to his Black Gold backers that the media had given Donald Trump millions of dollars in free media exposure. You get earned media by earning it, Ted. And if they wont have you on, dont worry. Our generation doesnt flick channels for its MTV but will do anything for the Gram. I grew up in the house Jim Carrey lived in in The Truman Show . I know that all the worlds a stage, especially when we all have cameras with phones. Stagecraft is statecraft.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan once knocked me for going on TV too much, without considering that maybe his own failures as a leader stemmed from spending too much time in think tanks instead of in the green rooms where guests wait to appear on TV, and are thereby connected to the dinnertime of real Americans. I take his recent elevation to the board of News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, to be his very silent apology.

Its impossible to get canceled if youre on every channel. Why raise money to advertise on the news channels when I can make the news? And if you arent making news, you arent governing.

The Justice Democrats take it a step further, recruiting candidates through casting calls that look more like Hollywood auditions than politics, screening applicants from a given district who sound good delivering their pre-scripted talking points and then backing them. Through this system of political performance art, the rising socialist Left found their female lead in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, now perhaps the most powerful member of the House. FDR, JFK, LBJ, AOC: the Left memorializes its best with their initials, which its allies in Big Tech are happy to turn into trending hashtags while they shadowban those of us getting the real truth out.

President Trump knows talent when he sees it. He knows AOC has star power, which is why he so effectively trolls her fellow New York Democrat Chuck Schumer with the prospect of an AOC primary for his Senate seat. The president knows AOC and I are friendly, and on more than one occasion he has checked on my progress in encouraging her potential Senate run.

Once the good talkers get to Washington, they dont suddenly break bad. Its more that Washington presents them with a lot of distractions that make it, shall we say, easy to forget the principles they touted on the campaign trail. You dont drain the swamp; the swamp drains you. Of course, its even easier to be distracted if you never had any principles. The emptiest of vessels become the most corruptible of officials.

D.C. distractions take two formssex and money. Getting paid and getting laid. Now, those arent inherently bad things. In America, a bounty of both is to be honored and celebrated, not chastised. Congressmen shouldnt betray their country for them, thoughyet too many do. In our time, all the politicians want to be celebrities while the celebrities want to be politicians. Its hard to party like a rock star when youre living on a public salary, so others pick up the tabat a very steep price. Its just your soulthough no one really believes in that because it cant be monetized.

Washington, unfortunately, can be a very sexy city. Kissinger said power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, and D.C. covets it like the opioids the country cant seem to get enough of.

This town is full of celebrities making TV shows and movies, famous politicians, people gaining or losing power, scenic architecture, nubile coeds, embassy parties, and countless cosmopolitan fancies that stun those of us who show up as rural out-of-towners. It should both horrify and enlighten you that Bill Clinton said House of Cards wasnt far off the mark.

D.C. is said to have the highest concentrations of spies and hookers on the planet. It is often difficult to tell which is which, and that is by design. Influence peddlers are usually attractive or willing, or both. It helps them achieve their goals. So even if you dont think of D.C. as very tempting, you should stay on your toes here lest you get seduced for one purpose or another. A smiling face might not conceal a dagger, but it could hide someones hope of getting a rider added to an agriculture spending bill. And if they cant seduce you, theyll get your spouse or your kidsjust to get to you. Daniel Golden recounts in his book The Price of Admission that when Congress sought to regulate the multibillion-dollar endowments of the top universities by forcing them to pay out 5 percent of their funds, the way private foundations already do, a disproportionate number of the children of members of Congress suddenly got accepted to their first choice of college. Curiously, that reform legislation then went away.

Nassim Taleb says we like our heroes free and unencumbered. Now, I aint no hero, but thats through no fault of my own. I arrived in D.C. as a single man after a couple of long-term relationships that didnt work out. I knew going in how many people had been brought down by sexual missteps in this town, so I set some rules to help me err on the safe(r) side. In Washington, safe sex means in part: no dating lobbyists, no dating your staff members, and I should have added no dating reporters, but I didnt at first. One former member, Blake Farenthold of Texas, amazingly violated the first two rules in one fell swoop by propositioning a staffer to have a threesome with him and a lobbyist, leading to his resignation in 2018.

Im stunned by those who do things like pen love letters to staff, such as Rep. Pat Meehan, Republican of Pennsylvania, who was elected in 2010 and, like Farenthold, ended up resigning in 2018 after declaring a staff member his soulmate. The amazing part is that Meehan was on the Ethics Committee. On paper, he sounded like a well-behaved family man, so why not? Meanwhile, if youre a single guy like me, some people in D.C. get suspicious immediately.

One young fellow member told me hes dating his scheduler. Theyre happy. Blissfully in love, he says. I told him, keep in mind shes no longer working for youyoure working for her, not the public you swore on oath to serve. Shell be hailed as a hero the moment she decides to call it off and publicly complain about it. Im not preaching, just advising. Its risky to date in a town where theres potentially a thin line between love and blackmail, or at least love and bad PR.