TruthArchive.ai - Tweets Saved By @RepThomasMassie

RepThomasMassie
Posted - February 16, 2026 at 2:46 PM
Saved - February 16, 2026 at 5:25 PM
reSee.it AI Summary
Rep. Thomas Massie asked if the DOJ should investigate crimes revealed in Epstein files or move on. A commenter urged him to read a post and watch a video, calling Massie a courageous patriot and a last hope, and a victim of the DOJ. Another participant offered a salute in support.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Should DOJ investigate crimes based on information revealed in Epstein files, or should the country just move on?

@jalymc17 - Jalymc

@RepThomasMassie Rep Massie, please read this post and watch the video. You are one of the last hopes in this Country now. Thank you so much. A courageous patriot desperately needs help. He's also a victim of our DOJ. https://t.co/1t9HqPLdxQ

@Theonlyme333 - Theonlymethereis

Judge James C. Ho, when he warned through his concurring opinion of a 4th Amendment decision, said it clearly: "Hamstringing the government is the whole point of our Constitution." Our founders never trusted government with the power to decide which words are allowed and which aren’t. Because once you give that power away, you never get it back. And that’s what these moments are really about. Jonathan is being prosecuted for speech. 👉Not violence. 👉Not action. 👉Speech. We have to understand what a line like this represents. Because when you make one word illegal… one phrase illegal… one set of opinions illegal… you start a chain reaction that never stops. Today it’s one word. Tomorrow it’s ten. Next year, it’s any criticism that makes someone in power uncomfortable. Our founders understood that. They wrote the First Amendment first for a reason. Because free expression... especially harsh, brash, passionate criticism of government... is the core safety valve of a free nation. Judge Ho reminded us of that when he said: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. But because they are not, we must control the abuses of government. Our rights are priceless." That warning matters right now. Because what we’re watching in this case isn’t fear... it’s punishment. It’s not about safety... it’s about silencing. It’s about taking criticism of powerful people, powerful networks, and foreign malign influence... and rebranding it as extremism or “terroristic” when it’s really just dissent. And dissent is not a crime. It’s the birthright of every American. Jonathan became a target not because he did violence, but because he spoke loudly, passionately, and without permission. He criticized people who didn’t want to be criticized. He challenged narratives that some people in power preferred to keep unchallenged. That is exactly why the First Amendment exists. 👉Not for polite speech. 👉Not for sanitized speech. 👉Not for the approved opinions of the moment. But for the messy, uncomfortable, abrasive speech that holds power accountable. This case sets a precedent far bigger than one man. Because if the government can criminalize words today, they can criminalize your words tomorrow. If they can call one critic an extremist, they can call any critic an extremist. If they can prosecute speech across state lines, they can reach into anyone’s timeline. This is why we must stand up. Not just for Jonathan, but for every one of us who believes the government should never be trusted to decide which ideas are legal. Support his fight. Share his story. Donate to his defense. Because defending speech you don’t like is how you protect the speech you do like. Judge Ho warned: "Our decisions today are not costless, but our rights are priceless." So let’s act like they are. Let’s show Jonathan he’s not alone. And let’s show the government that the American people still know how to defend the First Amendment...and our sovereignty...loudly, unapologetically, and without fear. For God, for Family, and for Country. 🫡🇺🇲

@Theonlyme333 - Theonlymethereis

@jalymc17 @RepThomasMassie 🫡 https://t.co/3ToYjDo2jx

RepThomasMassie
Posted - February 3, 2026 at 7:24 PM
Saved - February 3, 2026 at 11:29 PM
reSee.it AI Summary
I voted against the omnibus rule and pointed out items I deem ridiculous or not America First. I offered amendments—blocked: funding refugees ($5B+), CIA/State Dept propaganda ($315M), Israel ($3.3B + $0.5B), Egypt ($1.5B), Jordan ($2.1B), foreign HIV/AIDS ($700M). My amendments blocked: kill switch in cars, daycare fraud freeze, FISA surveillance, USAGM propaganda, CBDCs, and the SAVE Act.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

I voted against the rule to bring this omnibus forward for a vote. Here is a breakdown of some of the most ridiculous items included in the omnibus, and some America First items that were not. I offered amendments to correct these errors—all of which were blocked or refused🧵:

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

$5 BILLION+ to provide cash benefits, health care, daycare, and job programs to refugees on the taxpayers' dime. https://t.co/z68CCyL3i8

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

$315 million to fund the CIA’s branch of the State Department that propagandizes and destabilizes the globe and has a particular interest in censorship and attacking conservative media outlets. https://t.co/szXgKIgSKa

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

$3,300,000,000 to Israel. https://t.co/MMbofRavBl

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Oh, and an extra $500,000,000 for Israel. https://t.co/fN2XV3hUo0

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

$1,500,000,000 for Egypt. Gotta make sure we cover both sides of the Suez! https://t.co/rUCgOJZ2PD

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

And we can’t let the Jordanians feel left out… $2,100,000,000. https://t.co/224TPqTCvP

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Nearly $700 MILLION for foreign HIV/AIDS. This is certainly what I think about when buying groceries back home in Kentucky. https://t.co/6zUBRbEdD1

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

We could keep going with the ridiculous provisions baked in, but we can’t leave out the America First items Republican leadership refused to include…

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

REFUSED: My amendment to prevent the government from installing a “kill switch” in your personal vehicle. https://t.co/B4EimMYpBS

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

BLOCKED: My amendment to freeze the funds for “daycare fraud.” https://t.co/t8OXJLjLtw

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

BLOCKED: My amendment to stop warrantless surveillance of Americans via loopholes in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). https://t.co/JyDtrTL4CQ

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

BLOCKED: My amendment to end the propagandizing of U.S. citizens by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). https://t.co/K429EZSCRf

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

BLOCKED: My amendment to stop the creation of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) that will be used for financial surveillance and control of your wallet. https://t.co/McJMYE1hAR

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

And most importantly…BLOCKED: The inclusion of the SAVE Act to protect our elections from illegal aliens—a TOP priority for conservatives. https://t.co/pZAlaorH2I

RepThomasMassie
Posted - December 28, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Saved - December 29, 2025 at 5:30 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

.@SpeakerJohnson once claimed Trump was an FBI informant against Epstein. The next day, he walked his comments back but reasserted that Trump did work as an informant would against Epstein to help law enforcement. I’ll be interested to read about this in the Epstein files. https://t.co/Sq32SfeW8B

Video Transcript AI Summary
Speaker 0 asserts: it's a terrible, unspeakable evil, and he believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down. The president knows.
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Speaker 0: It's a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar A Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take the this this stuff down. The president knows.
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Speaker 0 says that more than a decade ago, President Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago and was one of the few prominent people reportedly willing to help law enforcement go after Epstein, who is described as a disgusting child abuser and sex trafficker. They say this is common knowledge.
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Speaker 0: More than a decade ago, president Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar A Lago, and he was one of the only people one of the only prominent people, as everyone has reported, not president Trump, but everybody about him, that he was willing to help law enforcement go after this guy who was a disgusting child abuser, sex trafficker, all the allegations. That's what they heard. So the president was helpful in that. I don't know if I use the right terminology, but that's common knowledge, and everybody knows that. So
RepThomasMassie
Posted - December 18, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Saved - December 20, 2025 at 12:52 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Our Epstein Files Transparency Act is now law. It establishes a December 19 deadline for the Attorney General to release the Epstein files. In this video, I’ll tell you what to expect in advance of tomorrow's statutory disclosure deadline. https://t.co/7aD7q1kyLC

Video Transcript AI Summary
Congressman Thomas Massie discusses the Epstein Files Transparency Act and what to expect from the December 19, public release of materials. Key framework and deadlines - The Epstein Files Transparency Act was signed on November 19. Materials are due in a publicly searchable format by December 19. - The act is a law, not a subpoena, and has no expiration date. It directs the attorney general to produce three sets of files from three locations: the Department of Justice (DOJ), the FBI, and US Attorneys, including grand jury material from investigations and trials. How to know if all materials have been released - Longtime case reporters and victim’s attorneys indicate there are at least 20 names of men accused of sex crimes in FBI files, specifically in the FD-302 forms that memorialize witness testimony. - If the December 19 production contains no names of any male accused of sex crimes or sex trafficking, that would indicate documents have not been fully released. Legal novelty and enforcement - Unlike prior Congress subpoenas that can be delayed or run out the clock, the act imposes a binding legal obligation with no congressional expiration. - If the attorney general is noncompliant, the next attorney general could be obligated to release the files the moment they hold the seat, and there are penalties described in the act (not detailed here). - The act ensures that even if a new administration changes hands (e.g., post-Trump), compliance is enforceable. Impact on grand jury material and redactions - The act prompted movement in grand jury material rulings: after passage, three federal judges (SD Florida, SDNY) ordered that grand jury material be produced to the DOJ, with redactions to protect victims’ identities as required by the act. - Judges indicated they would redact identifying information of victims, aligning with the act’s protections. Contemporary statements and implications - Pam Bondi had claimed substantial material on her desk and later said there was no material besides child sexual abuse material; Massie notes that other material exists and Bondi will need to produce it, potentially requiring her to address prior statements. - Cash Patel testified before the Senate that there is no evidence implicating anyone other than Epstein; Massie questions him in a House Judiciary hearing about three-zero-two forms, suggesting they may contain corroborating evidence implicating others. - If other men are implicated, the evidence would come from victim statements and corroborating witnesses in FBI files, including 302 forms. Upcoming and media appearances - Congress adjourns a day early, so the document release may be observed on Saturday. Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna plan to discuss findings on Face the Nation on Sunday. Ongoing investigations - Bondi announced new federal investigations near the time the bill passed. A bicameral, bipartisan letter seeks a sit-down to discuss what new material justified these investigations. - The act requires that any claims of ongoing investigations affecting release be limited to material that would impact that specific investigation, with temporary redactions as allowed by the law. Massie concludes by promising updates on Friday’s release and compliance with the act, and thanks the audience.
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Speaker 0: Hi. This is congressman Thomas Massey. We're about forty eight hours from the deadline for the attorney general to produce all of the Epstein files according to the Epstein files transparency act, which was signed on November 19. So that makes the production of these materials in a publicly searchable format due on December 19. And I wanted to talk about some of the things to look for and what we may be anticipating and some of the unique aspects of, this project. Let's start out with how will you know if they've released all the materials? Well, one of the ways we'll know is there are people who have covered this case for years. And I've talked to them in private. And they know what some of the material is that's back there. But the other way that we're going to know is the victim's lawyers have been in contact with me. And collectively, they know there are at least 20 names of men who are accused of sex crimes in the possession of the FBI. These would reside in the FD three zero two forms. The FBI fills out these forms to summarize or memorialize what a witness gave them as far as testimony when they interviewed with the FBI. So if we get a large production on December 19 and it does not contain a single name of any male who's accused of a sex crime or sex trafficking or rape or any of these things, then we know they haven't produced all the documents. It's that simple. So that's a good thing that we will know. One of the really novel things about the way we went about this, as opposed to my other experiences on the Oversight Committee or the Judiciary Committee, is that this is a law. It's not a subpoena. So what we've seen in the past is that Congress issues a subpoena to the executive branch, and the executive branch ties up in court and tries to delay and obfuscate. And they know that if they drag it to the end of congress, that congressional subpoena expires at the end of congress. And so the next congress can't they would have to issue another subpoena. But what often happens is the majority changes or the person in the White House is no longer there or the person in that office is no longer there. And so there can't be any prosecution or criminal, or any anything like that that carries on past the Congress. This is very different. This is a law. There's no expiration date on this law. So let's say you have an attorney general who is not in compliance with this law. By the way, the the law specifies the attorney general's office, not attorney general Bondi specifically, but anybody who is in that office holding that seat. So if she were to leave, and let's say she's in noncompliance and has broken the law, then whoever gets in that seat is automatically, obligated that day to release the files because it's directing the office of the attorney general to produce three files from three different locations, by the way. The US attorneys have material, the FBI has material, and the DOJ has material. Now the DOJ will also have material, thankfully, from the grand jury, investigations and trials. So that's but the interesting thing that I want to point out here is, let's say they try the old tactic of running the clock out until the end of this congress, which is about a year from now. That won't work because what in fact, what can happen is a new attorney general can bring charges against a former attorney general. And so what you might see is that an attorney general under Trump, if they refuse to produce these documents in compliance with the law, which would be ironic because the attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer of the land. But if they refuse to produce these materials, then, let's say whoever is the next president, their attorney general could bring charges because the statute of limitations will not have run out on noncompliance with this law. It's unique. It's different than if there were a subpoena and Congress had referred the person in noncompliance with the subpoena for contempt to and who do they refer it to? To the DOJ. And so that's why you can never get to the bottom of these cases when it's just a subpoena. But this is a law and it will last forever. The other interesting thing here in this case is we're already seeing progress as a result of this, the Epstein Files Transparency Act becoming public law 01/1938. There were three courts of interest that had grand jury material. One in Southern District Of Florida, a judge there, and then two judges in the Southern District Of New York. These are federal courts. They had previously said because of rule six e of the criminal proceedings, that they could not give the grand jury material to the DOJ. Interestingly, after the Epstein files transparency act passed, the DOJ did go back to these judges. And I'm gonna assume it was sincere. Maybe it was an attempt to get them to say no in in the hopes that it would say no. But I'm gonna assume they were sincere in the request from these judges. And what they did is they requested that the judges produce the grand jury material a second time. And in all three cases, in all three of those courtrooms, the judge said, yes. The Epstein files Transparency Act because it's a new law. It overrides other the preexisting general laws. So that's good. We've already seen movement. And another interesting thing we saw in those judges rulings is that they said that they will redact, in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, information that would identify the victims. If you remember in the five months of siege warfare we had trying to get this legislation through the house with Mike Johnson opposing us, he would repeatedly say that the release of this material would endanger victims. In fact, in the week before we passed it, he was still repeating that line. We had to keep pointing him back to the law and show him the chapter and verse where it says, no. Redact the victims' names and identifying information. So we've seen movement from the grand juries. That is good news. Finally, there's an interesting aspect to this in that the you know, Pam Bondi has said, in her official capacity, but not necessarily under oath by the way, if you say something to a TV camera in an interview and you lie, in Washington DC, that's okay. You can't be prosecuted for that. So we had her saying that there were there was tons of material on her desk and that she was in possession of it. And then she eventually changed her story to say that there's no material. The only thing that really exists anymore is child sexual abuse material, pornography, and that she wasn't gonna release any of that. Well, we know that's not true. We know that she has more material and she's going to have to produce that material. So that puts her in an interesting position. In order to comply with the law, she's going to have to prove or give proof evidence that shows she wasn't, forthcoming in her previous statements. Although that that wouldn't necessarily be illegal. Again, in Washington DC, you're allowed to spin, spin, spin and lie, lie, lie, and we've seen them do it before. But there's a situation where it is illegal to lie, and, that is when you come before congress and give testimony. I'm sure you've all seen them. They raised their right hand and they swear that they are gonna give the truth to the best of their ability, so help them God. And so we had Cash Patel do that in front of the senate when he testified, and he said that there's no evidence in his possession that would implicate anybody else other than Jeffrey Epstein. So when he testified in front of the House committee on the judiciary on which I sit, I asked him that question again. I said, you've testified in front of the senate that there's no information that exists that, you know, would implicate other men. I said, what about the three zero two forms? I said, have you reviewed those personally? And he said that his staff had and that he trusted them. This sets up an interesting situation because when they produce these materials, what we're gonna find out is they are in possession of evidence that other men may have been guilty. And I and it's gonna be credible evidence because they're gonna be, I believe, multiple corroborating witnesses, I. E. The victims who've given statements. And those are in the possession of the FBI. Again, we'll know if they're giving us all those documents if they produce documents that have names of men on them. So let's see what happens Friday. Interestingly, Congress is adjourning a day early so that we won't be in session on Friday when these documents are required to be released, again, in a public searchable format. And so it'll be Saturday, really, before we know. Representative Ro Khanna, who is my co sponsor and and the individual on the democrat side of the aisle who co led this effort with me the entire way, he and I will be on Face the Nation Sunday to talk about what we've learned and what they've produced. But again, this is a very unique situation. A lot of times, when you're talking about did the did the executive branch comply with the request from Congress or are they in compliance with the law, You're trying to parse out the meaning of words like emoluments, or you're trying to interpret laws that were passed in the antebellum era, you know, in in the civil war right after the civil war, know, when we talked about the electors and the role of congress in certifying electors. But this is a case where the president who appointed the attorney general and for whom the attorney general works has signed a law and and the ink is not even dry yet on his, signature on this law. There's no there's nothing that's subject to interpretation. We're not arguing whether this law is valid. We're not arguing the case history of this law is interpreted by the Supreme Court. This is a fresh law that was passed unanimously in the Senate, passed 427 to one in the House with modern terms that are not ambiguous that federal judges have already demonstrated, that they understand and that they are gonna comply with. And this president, he's agreed to comply with this law if he signed this law. He had a part in making this the law, so his attorney general has to comply with it. And there are, penalties if she does not. And I don't wanna get into that. We may talk about that on Sunday shows. I'm hopeful that there'll be a large document production on Friday. One other last thing, some people have said, oh, what about the ongoing investigations? Because if you remember, attorney general Bondi had closed all the investigations. There were no federal investigations. But on the eve of the passage of our bill, she announced, and the president also, put on social media, that they were opening new investigations. Now his had a partisan bent to it, But, in the wake of that, my colleagues and I this is a a bicameral, bipartisan letter that we sent to the attorney general, and we've asked for a sit down with her or even her staff to explain to us what is the new material that they found that warranted opening new investigations. Because I know some of you are concerned that they're going to try to use this claim that releasing this material would impede an ongoing investigation. The the problem with that claim is we've already said in our law, in the letter of our law, that it would have to be material that would affect that particular investigation specifically. And the redaction can only be temporary, for instance. That's also in the law. So they can't open enough investigations to cover up the terabytes of information that they are in possession of and that we hope to see on Friday. So, I'll keep you posted. I'll come back on. We'll talk about what we found and to what degree the attorney general is in compliance with the law. But I'm hopeful. Thank you and God bless.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - December 17, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Saved - December 17, 2025 at 9:51 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

I spoke for the War Powers Resolution directing the President to remove armed forces from hostilities in Venezuela unless Congress authorizes it. When war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves. Congress needs to vote before the President attempts regime change. https://t.co/Q2PCukxcDt

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The speaker invokes James Madison to emphasize that war and peace decisions belong to the legislature, calling it the “crown jewel of Congress,” and warns that concentrating war-making power in one person erodes liberty. If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified, the case should be made to Congress and Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America. The speaker questions the likelihood of Maduro being replaced by a modern-day George Washington, asking how past interventions fared in Cuba, Libya, Iraq, or Syria. He notes that previous presidents used weapons of mass destruction as a justification for war, referencing the WMD narrative and suggesting a parallel with today’s rhetoric about drugs as a supposed WMD. He asserts that if the objective were drugs, actions would have targeted Mexico, China, or Colombia, and highlights the pardon of Juan Orlando Hernandez as inconsistent with a drug-war narrative. He contends that the policy for regime change is driven by oil interests, and asserts that the United States has already pursued this path in Venezuela without success. The speaker recalls the 2019 recognition of Juan Guaido, the seizure of Venezuela’s embassy in Washington, and claims that regime change was promised but Maduro remains in power years later. He mentions contemporary exiled figures as hopes, specifically naming Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Carina Machado, but warns that Congress should not provide a blank check for military escalation and American lives. A central contradiction highlighted is the administration’s labeling of the Maduro regime as narco terrorists while at the same time potentially causing countless refugees through escalation, alongside moves to end temporary protected status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and deport them to the regime it condemns. The speaker poses questions about whether the nation should absorb millions of Venezuelan refugees and spend billions to destroy and rebuild the country, or risk creating a “miniature Afghanistan in the Western Hemisphere.” If the cost is deemed acceptable by Congress, the speaker argues it should be decided through a vote, aligning with the Constitution. He clarifies that the current vote is not for declaring war or authorizing force, but for a war powers resolution that reaffirms Congress’s authority over war decisions. He urges support for the resolution and closes as time expires.
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Speaker 0: Gentleman from Kentucky is recognized for three minutes. Mister speaker, James Madison warned us that in no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature and not the executive. Madison called it the crown jewel of congress. The framers understood a simple truth. To the extent that war making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves. If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case and congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America. Let's be honest about likely outcomes. Do we truly believe that Nicolas Maduro will be replaced by a modern day George Washington? How did that work out? In Cuba, Libya, Iraq, or Syria. Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs, weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Now it's the same playbook, except we're told that drugs are the WMDs. If it were about drugs, we'd bomb Mexico or China or Colombia, and the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez. This is about oil and regime change. And when it comes to regime change, we've already been down this road with Venezuela with nothing to show for it. In 2019, we recognized Juan Guaido. We seized their embassy here in DC. We were told that regime change was imminent. Years later, Maduro remains in power. Today, we're told to place our hopes in other exiled figures. Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Carina Machado. I wish them well. I do. But congress should not express moral sympathy in the form of a blank check for military escalation and American lives. And let's take a moment to acknowledge the contradiction at the heart of this policy. This administration tells us that the Maduro regime is made up of narco terrorists and by and by escalating toward war, we would predictably create countless refugees. At the same time, this administration has moved to end temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and deports them back to the very regime it condemns. So which is it? Are we prepared to receive swarms of the 25,000,000 Venezuelans who will likely become refugees and billions in American treasure that will be used to destroy and inevitably rebuild that nation? Do we want a miniature Afghanistan in the Western Hemisphere? If that cost is acceptable to this congress, then we should vote on it as a voice of the people and in accordance with our constitution. And yet today, here we aren't even voting on whether to declare war or authorize the use of military force. All we're voting on is a war powers resolution that strengthens the fabric of our republic by reasserting the plain and simple language in the constitution that congress must decide questions of war. I urge support for this resolution and I yield back. Gentlemen, time had expired. The
RepThomasMassie
Posted - December 15, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Saved - December 15, 2025 at 4:34 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered. I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it. https://t.co/j3dvzRxLQJ

RepThomasMassie
Posted - December 12, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Saved - December 13, 2025 at 2:39 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

🧵 Last night I received a disclosure from a new FBI whistleblower regarding the J6 pipe bomb case. This is the third disclosure I’ve received from current and former employees of the government regarding the pipe bomb case in recent weeks.

RepThomasMassie
Posted - December 12, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Saved - December 12, 2025 at 10:13 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Things are developing quickly. I recorded this video yesterday. Tonight I received a third whistle blower disclosure regarding the J6 pipe bomb case that I’ll try to characterize tomorrow.

@freethepeople - Free the People

With the arrest of a suspect for placing the January 6 pipe bombs, the FBI would like to consider the case closed. But @RepThomasMassie says, not so fast! @mkibbe @BlazeTV @theblaze https://t.co/IZLvSp1yPt

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- Kibbe on Liberty hosts Congressman Thomas Massey for part one of a mega episode focusing on the FBI-identified pipe bomber in the January 6 events and the anomalies in the official narrative; Massey argues he does not believe one loner acted alone. - Massey discusses prior coverage and context, noting a Steve Baker interview that documented inconsistencies in the official narrative. He points to fallout from that interview: a Capitol Hill Police official, who was third in command, resigned the day after the interview; another whistleblower contacted Massey about that officer, suggesting misconduct unrelated to the pipe bomb but part of a larger pattern of investigations. - Massey argues that the FBI’s announcement of a suspect came about a week after that interview and after reporting by The Blaze, and suggests the timing is suspicious. He says this coincidence is surprising and potentially a red flag, given that the investigation had been deemed inconclusive or dormant for years. - Massey emphasizes his own context: his staffer on the Hill watched hours of video to identify who found the second pipe bomb; he asserts that the individuals who found the second bomb should be considered suspects, and that the FBI admitted this to him. He recounts efforts with Kevin McCarthy to release video showing how the second pipe bomb was found, noting that those who found it were very lucky to locate it quickly. - He describes other connections and leads: his staffer now works for Kash Patel; Massey has spoken with a counter-surveillance officer who found the pipe bomb and with the officer’s handler, a Capitol Hill Police member who had previously worked for the ATF and later for Metro Police and Capitol Hill Police. He also mentions conversing with the assistant FBI director in charge of the Washington field office, in a transcribed interview with Jim Jordan about why cell phone data wasn’t used to geolocate the suspect (the provider allegedly corrupted data, which the judiciary committee and Barry Loudermilk’s committee disputed). - Massey references a 100-page report from Barry Loudermilk’s committee on the pipe bomb investigation, noting leads the FBI did not follow. He mentions a lead about an individual in Falls Church, Virginia (a former military man now in government service) whose metro card was used on January 5 and January 6; this person’s childhood friend allegedly used the metro card to approach the RNC/Capitol Hill Club area and take photographs near the pipe bomb sites. Massey asserts this person of interest, plus a neighbor who shared a wall with him, could be connected to others the FBI has not fully explored. - He contends that the arrest appears to derail other investigations and interviews that were being planned. He asserts that a “pro-Trump” motive has not been established for the suspect, contrasting the media’s framing with details such as the suspect’s My Little Pony interest and parental political donations. - Massey criticizes the prosecutor in the case, Jocelyn Ballantine, and recounts concerns about her track record (including involvement in the Flynn case, the Proud Boys case, and alleged attempts to obtain confessions implicating Trump). He questions why she remains at the DOJ. - They discuss broader concerns about FBI politicization and surveillance: Massey references reporters and contact with Kash Patel’s team to argue for cleaning house at the FBI, but notes Ballantine remains in place. He describes eight senators discovering they had been spied on, leading to a legislative push: in the last continuing resolution, lawmakers added a half-million-dollar payout and standing to sue the government for surveillance abuses, a provision he characterizes as carving exemptions out of the law; he says this was supported by most lawmakers, who voted for the CR due to Trump concerns. - They debate possible explanations for the pipe bomber case: the possibility that the FBI identified the suspect and cleared him, prompting no arrest due to exonerating information; or the possibility of a false narrative crafted by others to preserve the January 6 prosecution framework; or the involvement of a patsy or rogue actor. - Massey reiterates his three things he said on Twitter: the bomber was a lone wolf (which he disputes); the FBI was unwittingly incompetent for four years (which he says he questions and calls a cover-up); and it was not a Trump supporter. He stresses the need for more transcribed interviews and explanations from the FBI and ongoing oversight to uncover the full truth. - The discussion shifts toward Epstein files coverage and the broader goal of maintaining public pressure for transparency. They indicate a plan to release a separate bonus episode focusing on Epstein files.
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Speaker 0: Welcome to Kibbe on Liberty, part one of another mega episode with congressman Thomas Massey. This time, about the alleged pipe bomber that the FBI has announced that they caught and the anomalies in the official narrative, and why it is that congressman Massey does not believe that one loner acted alone. Check it out. Welcome to Kibbe on Liberty. Congressman, I feel like we keep doing this. Speaker 1: We gotta quit meeting this way. Speaker 0: Yeah. The last time we talked was October 29 and we talked about the the Epstein files in particular and you were optimistic that you were going to get to 02/18. But everything has changed since then and I wanna get to that. But right now, you've you've reinserted yourself into the ongoing drama investigation about the January 6 pipe bomber. Bomber. And you had this conversation with Steve Baker that that we at Free the People published because we we wanted to sort of document all of the inconsistencies in the official narrative about that. But we have new information now. The FBI has identified, I guess they would call it a suspect in this case. And you tweeted some skepticism Yes. About the official narrative. Speaker 1: Well, before we move on, let's talk about, the Steve Baker interview. One of the men that we mentioned in the Steve Baker interview resigned the day after I did that interview. He works for the Capitol Hill Police. He was third in command. And then also, after I did that Steve Baker interview, another whistleblower reached out to me about that particular officer at the Capitol Police who had resigned. It was a it was a man who had worked with that gentleman before and gave me some reinforcement that he may not be on the up and up. Speaker 0: Yeah. So I'm sure that's just a coincidence that he would resign the day after. Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't I don't wanna allegedly, he did something inappropriate at the Capitol Hill Police, unrelated to the pipe bomb. But that's too much to speculate on. But, yeah, it was the result of that interview. This former person who worked in the government, undercover, had had an operation where this Capitol Hill police officer, who was ATF at the time, had inserted himself and botched something they had going on. Speaker 0: Interesting. Speaker 1: So there was some fallout from that. And also, I would say this arrest is a little bit of fallout. It's you know, the FBI claims they were tracking somebody for a while, but I think it was Steve Baker's reporting, Barry Loudermilk's committee, and the movement they were making on the cell tower data, and then that interview I did with Steve Baker. I think that may have prompted the FBI to act quicker in this arrest. Speaker 0: So, and and the the announcement that they had found the the alleged bomber happened maybe a week after that interview? Or a week after the Blaze story. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. A week after the interview. Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. So again, like And and that that coincidence to me is is surprising, maybe even a red flag. Like, why after, at that point, five years did they suddenly go reinvestigate an investigation that apparently had been put aside as as inconclusive at best. Speaker 1: So let me let me and also before we jump into this recent arrest, let me give folks the context for my perspective. I'm not a random congressman who's interested in these news stories. It was my staffer on the hill who sat down and watched dozens of hours of video and made the discovery of who found the second pipe bomb. And anybody who finds the bomb should obviously be a suspect. The FBI Biden's FBI admitted as much to me. So I have that context of watching those videos, and then I had to work with Kevin McCarthy to get that video released to show how that second pipe bomb was found. Because nobody on the planet had ever talked about how that second pipe bomb was found. And I think it it was an interesting circumstance. The folks that found it should have bought lottery tickets that day. They got so lucky in finding it within fifteen minutes of being told to go look for a pipe bomb. And by the way, they didn't go look for a third pipe bomb. Okay. So that's part of the context. Another part of the context is my staffer now works for Kash Patel, the one and and has because of particular insight into this case. So I have that context. Also, I talked to one of the counter surveillance officers in my office who found the pipe bomb. I never got to talk to the other counter surveillance officer. I would dearly love to do that. I talked to his handler in my office, who is the Capitol Hill Police guy, third in command, who resigned last week. Okay? He became the handler for the counter surveillance officers when I wanted to talk to them. The day of January 6, he worked for the ATF and was over all things explosive, you know, firearms and whatnot, bombs that day. But he migrated from ATF to Metro Police to Capitol Hill Police, where he was until just last week or the week before. So I have personal conversations with those two folks at at Capitol Police. And then I also have personal experience of interviewing the assistant FBI director in charge of the Washington field office. Jim Jordan, as part of the judiciary committee oversight of the DOJ and FBI, called that, man in because he led the raid on Mar A Lago. Now, he claims he didn't wanna do the raid and he was reluctant. But while the guy was in and sworn in, you know, doing the transcribed interview, I asked Jordan, could I pop in and ask some questions? So I popped in and asked him questions about the pipe bomb investigation. And he told me in that interview that when I asked him, why didn't you use cell phone data to geolocate the suspect? He said the data had been corrupted by one of the providers. Now, the judiciary committee and Barry Loudermilk's special committee followed up on that lead, and the cell phone provider said, no. Our data wasn't corrupted. So that colors my trust of the FBI and this investigation in general. I also asked him a question. How does this sixty minute kitchen timer how's that supposed to set off a bomb sixteen hours later? Because the FBI narrative then and and still now is that these bombs were planted on the evening of January 5 and meant to blow up on January 6 and were operable. He didn't have a good answer for that. And that transcript is available online if folks wanna go read that. Finally, Barry Loudermilk's committee and my I was chair of a subcommittee last congress in judiciary on regulatory reform in the administrative state, but I did investigation of this pipe bomb. And so Barry Loudermilk's committee and and the folks working for me in judiciary on this project produced about a 100 page report at the beginning of this year at which was the end of congress. Right? So the new Congress started on January 3. I think our report came out on January 2. That's when you have to turn in all your homework. And we covered a lot of interesting things, like some of the leads that the FBI chose not to follow. And we had questions. Why didn't they follow these leads? For instance, they had it looked like they did identify several people that pinged on the cell phones in those locations. But 51 of those cell phones, they just ruled out, either because they were law enforcement or other persons who wouldn't be of interest. What I'm realizing now is I may have been on that list of 51 because I was in that same circuit where the the pipe bombs were laid. I was between the two pipe bombs that night. I got in a car and went and bought, takeout food from a restaurant on the Wharf and brought it back. So I'm sure I'm one of the pings. But they should have followed every one of those pings. They shouldn't have ruled out congressmen. They shouldn't have ruled out police or anybody else. They should have done the full investigation, but they didn't. And finally, there's this interesting lead that I know about, because I have access to some of this stuff, where they went to there was an individual in Falls Church, Virginia, former military, who is now, like, e 13, worked for the government. And his transit card, his metro card, was used he it was purchased a year before it was used. It was used only twice. It was used on January 5 and January 6. It was his childhood friend who he hadn't seen in years. And, his childhood friend wanted to come to DC and and stay with him, end up using his MetroCard, goes to the South Capitol Street, Metro Station, changes, puts on a hat, a hood, a mask, and, go gets out of the subway, takes pictures of the location where the they call it the RNC Pipe Bomb. It's actually a very specific spot. It's an alleyway between the RNC and the Capitol Hill Club, and there's a dumpster back there. He's back there taking pictures of the area where the pipe bomb was found the next day. And somehow the FBI, he said he was writing a book, and he needed some pictures of numbers for the chapter headings or something. The book's never been published. We're five years later. And this guy just sort of disappeared off the planet. So that's a lead the FBI needs to trace. But I've, you know, I've seen pictures of that individual. He's we'll call him person of interest too. And they incidentally, he person of interest three, who's the owner of the transit card, the metro card, shared a wall. They weren't just like neighbors. They shared a wall. Their doors, you could literally touch both doors at the same time with a Capitol Police officer that, Steve Baker thinks may have been involved. By the way, a lot of these investigations were just heating up, and then this arrest happens, and now they gotta pull the story of of this one lead, and interviews that were getting set up may not happen now. Speaker 0: Explain that. So so they've it it looks like the FBI scrambled to come up with with a suspect in response to your statements, your interviews, Steve Baker's story. Speaker 1: Barry Loudermilk's diligence. Speaker 0: Barry Loudermilk and and other independent journalists are are asking a lot of pointed questions about obvious inconsistencies with with the narrative. And and once they have a suspect, how does that end other investigations? Well, we Speaker 1: we wanna do transcribed interviews, it makes it hard to justify because now there's a narrative out there, and why would you go looking for anybody else? They found the guy. After five years, they found him. Speaker 0: Yeah. Speaker 1: All they had to do was look at the data they had, just look a little bit harder. Speaker 0: Thank you for joining me today on Kibbe on Liberty and for being part of our fiercely independent audience. Every week, my organization, Free the People, partners with Blaze TV to bring you this show. My guests bring smart perspectives on everything from current events to timeless philosophical debates. If you like what you hear, go to freethepeople.org/kol and support Kibbe on Liberty so we can continue to produce these honest conversations with interesting people. Now, let's get back to it. Yeah. I wanna read something from Grock and then I wanna go through a tweet that you had. I asked Grock if the FBI had a history of of grooming certain types of people in bomb plots. And Grock says, not that Grock is always right, then then Grock proceeds to list out a bunch of specific cases. Yes, there are numerous documented cases where the FBI has been accused of grooming or entrapment in bombing plots through informants and undercover agents who proposed ideas, provided resources, e g fake bombs and incentivized vulnerable individuals, often young, mentally unstable or predisposed but incapable of acting alone. These post nine eleven eleven operations criticized in reports by Human Rights Watch, the Brennan Center and outlets like The Intercept make up about thirty percent of terrorism stings. Conviction rate, with an eighty eight percent conviction rate despite weak defenses. And I'm thinking about this in the context of something you tweeted right after this, the suspected pipe bomber was announced and you have three things but I'll ask the the first one. Three things I'll never believe about the January pipe bomb story. The bomber was a lone wolf. And that's that's everything that you and Steve are talking about. There's there's not it's not just circumstantial evidence, but video evidence that that strongly suggests that the Capitol Hill police were involved. Speaker 1: Yes. A very very very small subset of Capitol Hill police. Because what they did was endanger the lives of other Capitol Hill police by throwing gasoline on the fire. Actually, providing the spark Speaker 0: Right. Speaker 1: In a in a wooded area is maybe a better analogy. So those those three things, I will you know, I said, I I don't believe he acted alone. I don't believe the FBI was was will this willfully incompetent for, you know, four years under Biden. And what was the third thing I said? Speaker 0: The third one was Speaker 1: Oh, that he's Trump Speaker 0: were pro Trump. Speaker 1: Yeah. No. I don't I mean, there have been rumors of that that this suspect was pro Trump, but it just doesn't add up. I mean, he was pro My Little Pony. He was a My Little Pony fan. And he he had parents who had sued the Trump administration. His father had, at least. And his father has made a max donation to some Democrat. So if there's any tangible evidence other than this alleged testimony of this guy without probably without a lawyer, I don't know if he had a lawyer present, for four hours. Let's, let's talk about the, prosecutor in this case too. The prosecutor in this case, it's a person that a lot of, MAGA and even just regular conservatives were surprised to find out still has a job at the DOJ. Her name is Jocelyn Ballantine or Ballantine. And, she tried to get well, she prosecuted, tried to prosecute Michael Flynn, when they decided to drop that, she said, no. We should keep going. And and I have special information about that too that I received in his GIF. He should have never been prosecuted, given the classified information that I know about him. But she was against dropping that case, and then she led the Proud Boys case, or she was part of that. She's been notoriously involved in trying to keep evidence from defendants, also involved in cases where evidence got modified. And she was also notoriously trying to get a confession out of one of these proud boys. They said she told him he'd get a lighter sentence if he could implicate Trump, you know, in their what they whatever they were convicted of, which is like a conspiracy, not actually doing anything. Right? She is the prosecutor who is now in charge of this case against this individual they arrested recently. And the question is, why does she even have a job at the DOJ? She tried to set Trump up, and she's gone after conservatives. And and the president was asked, I think it was Lindell TV reporter. Her name's Kara. I forget. Casanova or something. She asked the president this question here this week, you know, what why why is she still there? And the president said, I I don't know. We're looking into that. It's a democrat hoax. Speaker 0: Yeah. As an aside, before I get you off your your track, I remember when you actually were able to question Kash Patel about the Epstein files. And I'm characterizing his comments again and again. He seemed to say, I haven't looked at any of that, but I'm trusting my guys to tell me that they're doing their job. Speaker 1: And his guys are the same guys that worked when Biden was there. Right. So, you know, I have I have a problem with trusting the people who are still there. There's not really been enough turnover of the people who implicated themselves with the with the sort of wanton prosecutions and the and the, you know, the fervor with which they pursued prosecuting anybody associated with j six. Speaker 0: So all all MAGA, all conservatives, libertarians, at least this libertarian, would characterize certainly the Biden years of of the FBI as as radically politicized. Mhmm. And yet, it doesn't seem like anything has changed at all. Speaker 1: They even spied on Republican members of Congress. Yes. When we have FISA coming up for a vote here pretty soon, reauthorization. Speaker 0: What is that? That's Arctic Frost. Speaker 1: Yes. Arctic frost, which is like one of my favorite flavors of Gatorade. Speaker 0: But here's another rabbit hole. Why is it that all of these senators in congress and including our least favorite senator, perhaps at my least favorite senator, Lindsey Graham. Outraged by the fact that the federal government was surveilling his phone data, but not willing to do anything about the surveillance state that actually empowered the alphabet agencies to to stalk him. He's just he just wants to sue them and take taxpayer money for his damages. But is anybody actually talking about going after the the the apparatus that they created that has now been turned back on them? Speaker 1: So eight senators, including the one you mentioned, discovered, not because of any diligence on the part of the congressional oversight. It wasn't our judiciary committee or their judiciary committee who found this out. It wasn't Cash Patel or Dan Bongino who told them. It was a whistleblower who informed these eight senators that they had been spied on and that the telecoms had received a gag order not to even admit that they had spied on these senators. And these senators were so outraged that they wanted some form of justice for themselves. Now, so that they inserted, see, if you or I first of all, you or I would never find out that we were spied on because a whistleblower can go to Congress, but you can't go to individuals. Right? So we're never gonna well, when I say I, I guess I could. You know, whistleblowers can and do come to me, but let's let's use you and everybody watching this. You're never gonna find out that you were spied on because a whistleblower can't go to you. But even if you did found out, there's the law doesn't really provide for a way for you to have standing or to prove what the damages were. And so, the senators discovered this. So they changed the law. In this last CR. They included a half million dollar payout to each of them and standing to sue the government. But it's like they carved eight exemptions out of the law so that they could enrich themselves, And that was in the last continuing resolution. And I think I was the only or one of two Republicans who voted against that continuing resolution. And the others were so outraged, the entire Freedom Caucus. Oh my gosh. We cannot let this stand. So what did they do? Did they vote against the law that gave these eight senators special half million dollar payouts? No. They're afraid of Trump. So they voted for the CR in exchange for a righteous, bill to come to the floor the next week that removes this provision for these senators. Now here's the problem with with the remedy that they achieved. Yeah. We had a vote in the house on taking that away from the senators, but the senators ain't bringing that bill up. Speaker 0: It'll never happen. Speaker 1: It'll never happen. And that's I mean, yeah. I'm sorry to my Freedom Caucus friends, but you caved on that. Yeah. And if you if you were not gonna stand on something like that, that's a problem. But, no, you got me off track here Speaker 0: a little One more question on that and I don't but wanna go back to is there anyone besides you and Senator Rand Paul, maybe Senator Michael Lee, who would actually want to fix the empowerment of the surveillance state that allowed for that kind of, I would argue, radically unconstitutional surveillance of US senators? Speaker 1: Well, I'm not gonna mention her name, but we we had one brave congresswoman who said, I'm not voting for the NDAA, National Defense Authorization Act. I think that's the bill she decided to make her stand on. Unless the FBI has to disclose to Congress when they're spying on Congress. Okay. So not a carve out just for eight senators, but protection for all 100 senators and all 435 members of the House. Except they're not gonna tell us. The the FBI would have to tell the speaker and the chair of the committees. You think if they're spying on Thomas Massey, that Thomas Massie is Mike Johnson, who roundly despises me, and, you know, backhand insults left and right, he's still sore over the fact that he had to vote for my Epstein Files Transparency Act. Extremely mad about that. You think he's ever gonna tell me that the FBI is spying on me? He's never gonna tell me. And by the way, Speaker 0: that's You might encourage them. Speaker 1: My by the way, I don't need to be told. It's my default assumption Speaker 0: Right. Right. Speaker 1: That they're in my phone. Speaker 0: Okay. Speaker 1: Back to Speaker 0: we're back to the regular scheduled programming. I forget exactly where we were. Speaker 1: Well, I had tweeted that there's three things I'll never believe, that this was a lone wolf, that the FBI was was unwittingly incompetent for four years. I believe it's a cover up. We can we can there's multiple choices. You can pitch pick which kind of cover up you think it is, but it's a cover up of the FBI. And the third thing is, I don't believe it was a Trump supporter. Yeah. They that's the thing. They haven't established the motive yet of this, mentally delayed individual that they arrested last week or the week before. By the way, two things, you know, you ask we we don't need to really ask Grock. I have personal experience with a couple of these things where they entrap people who are, you know, barely getting by in life, easily misled, and couldn't achieve really anything on their own other than going to seven eleven, you know, and buying a Slurpee or something. Right? They're not gonna be able to procure bomb materials and plot and find the locations and the times and all this other stuff. So we had this case in when I was on oversight committee of these FBI or sorry, ATF stings. The ATF would set up these stings and try to entrap people. And one of their stings, they had a fake gun store, and they would bring people in, and and anybody with half a brain, know, an ATF agent offers to sell you a machine gun or something with no paperwork, you know, undercover ATF agent. Speaker 0: Yeah. Speaker 1: You're you're like, alright. This person's glowing. I'm out of here. So what they end up with in these dragnets are sort of the drags. And in this case of the fake ATF gun store, they had a logo. I don't know if it was an octopus or something. But they got two people so entrapped that the you know, mentally disadvantaged. I don't know what word is appropriate these days. These two mentally disadvantaged people who got caught up in this ATF sting got tattoos of the logo of the fake gun store on their bodies. Like, it's you know, I was involved in an ATF sting, all I got was this stupid tattoo. That's like the next that's probably the t shirt they wear now. And then also, to tie this closer to this pipe bomb case, Steve D'Antuano was the assistant FBI director in charge of Washington field office when j six happened. He had he had arrived just a few months before j six, and he was there for about a year and responsible for the pipe bomb investigation. Guess what he did before he came to the Washington field office? He was over the Michigan field office that and he oversaw the Fed napping scandal on governor Whitmer. Like, he was literally the guy in charge of that office where they used mentally disadvantaged, I just came up with that term. Speaker 0: Yeah. Individuals assume in the comments will be corrected by the the woke correct I don't care. Speaker 1: My kids came up with this word, knee narded. Because in school, they weren't allowed to say retarded. Speaker 0: Yeah. Speaker 1: So they would say that's knee narded or you're My a knee Speaker 0: wife calls me a retard all the time. Think it's a term of endearment, I'm not sure. Speaker 1: Probably. So anyways, he has a history of that. He's the guy in charge of what happens on January 6 and the investigation following that. Speaker 0: Same guy. Speaker 1: This does it does fit. It does fit. As Grock says, and it's my personal experience overseeing these things in Congress, it does fit the profile. So they've arrested this 30 year old. He would have been 25 year old at the time. He works it's data entry for his parents' bail bonds business. His his his grandmother or mother has come out. The family always says they're innocent, obviously. Right? But they offered almost kind of the, you know, what's the plea deal you make when you're not mentally capable of committing the crime knowingly or whatever. They offered that sort of defense in the public. They said, look, our son or our grandson, he's autistic, and he's operating at a 16 year old level, and he's not capable of this. That was that was their claim. And I do think that's that's relevant to know sort of his mental acuity. His one of his other jobs, this is relevant, included being, working for DoorDash. Because what the FBI has is some very fuzzy pings of him in the DC area, or they say they have. Last time I talked to him, the cell phone data was corrupted. But we find out the cell phone's data is not corrupted. Speaker 0: It's magically been uncorrupted. Uncorrupted. Speaker 1: They found the magic key, the Captain Crunch decoder ring. Speaker 0: Can you uncorrupt data? I don't actually it doesn't sound like something you can do, but I'm not technically proficient to know the answer to that. Speaker 1: Well, it took them four years and ten months to do it, but they did it. And they and so they found this individual. There's these aren't like locations, GPS locations that are down to a meter. These are like within a few blocks. The kind of resolution they have is within a few blocks. And the pings are borderline in the range of the cell towers. Like, they're on the ragged edge of the field of of service of those cell towers. And so, you know, they're gonna have to find something better than that. They're gonna have to find some hard evidence. Typically, you get, I think, you know, when you get a confession from somebody, the the really good confessions are, did you kill this person? Yeah, I killed him. Where'd you bury the body? Out there in that field on I 395, you know, you take that exit, okay, go show us, and then you go dig up the body. Like, I think there has to be something tangible, because it it is absolutely positive there are possible, not positive, absolutely possible that you can get a false confession out of somebody who's autistic. There have been articles written about it. Speaker 0: That's sort of a standard operating procedure as well, like bullying people into So Speaker 1: I hope this interview with this witness that went on or witness suspect that went on for four hours, I hope it's an audio tape or a video tape that members of Congress, at least, that I could get access to and and form an opinion on this. But we'll see. The other here's some other inconsistencies with or things that don't quite quite line up with this suspect. The they've they say they have checks and credit cards. Even one of them was a cash purchase, so I'm not sure how they know this individual made a cash purchase of bond making materials. The one inch diameter, eight inch long pipe, the end caps that go over that, nine volt batteries, alligator clips. They they literally they say they have evidence that he's purchased all of those things. By the way, all of those things are in my basement right now. Speaker 0: Of course. Speaker 1: Okay? Speaker 0: Yeah. Speaker 1: Because I've purchased all of those things multiple times. Speaker 0: Anybody that does home improvement. Speaker 1: Yeah. If you run the black pipe that is is used for gas lines for instance. If you're hooking up a generator or something, I'm not saying this kid did that sort of work, but these are common materials, but they say they've got him purchasing these things. The thing is, he must, he's he's an he must be a national asset at this point because he predicted the election. If if the motive is that he was upset about the election, so he built these bombs and placed them on j five so they would go off on j six and help the the insurgents take over the capital so that they could overturn the election, which seems to be the narrative right now. He knew two years in advance to start buying this material. Because the date on these purchases almost every purchase predates the election in November. There are a couple exceptions, but the the main exceptions are the purchases that happened on January 21. So it's like, we're talking about January 5. He continued, if you were if you if you saw on the news that your pipe bombs have been discovered, would you go out with your own credit card or checkbook and buy all the same stuff two or three weeks later in the in the heat of the manhunt? You know, this on the news, the FBI's putting out stuff, you're obviously gonna be watching for that stuff, whether you're autistic or not. Speaker 0: Yeah. Speaker 1: So that that doesn't make sense. And you you know, my first thought was, okay, he bought him after January 6, well, maybe he was gonna try, having not succeeded on January 6, maybe he planned to blow up something at the inauguration. The problem is the purchases were, I think, January 21, so like the day after the inauguration. The one thing they they don't say in the arrest papers is that they don't have a record of him purchasing the material to make the gunpowder. You know, they may have found that by now. I don't know. So that's where we are with this. I do not believe he masterminded this plot that he came and he that he knew that where the RNC and the DNC were or even that he looked them up and felt confident he could go to those locations and put those pipe bombs there, having never been there before, I guess. I just don't think he was capable of it. So your choices I did a poll. Speaking of tweets, I did another tweet. And my question know, these are very scientific. Speaker 0: Yeah. Speaker 1: Obviously, they're not scientific, but I typically get 20,000 answers. And a lot of them are, you know, in the constellation of the Internet. These are people clustered around my way of thinking. I understand there's extreme bias here. But I said, do you believe that the person they arrested is a lone wolf? Do you, or do you think he was involved, but there were more people involved than him, or do you think he's innocent? This is not how you try cases. Right? You don't put them on x and say, do we convict them? It was single single digits. Think think he's a lone wolf, and I do too. It once I see the substance of the evidence that the FBI has, I will tell you whether I believe he acted, in concert with somebody else, or whether he's completely innocent. There's a there's another choice I didn't list, which is maybe he was created to have a fallback. Maybe somebody got credit cards in his name and purchased materials in his name to have a cash of this stuff in case they needed it. Maybe, somebody called him up and asked him to do a DoorDash in that neighborhood so that his cell phone would ping. Maybe somebody said, hey. I've got a My Little Pony 1985 edition here on Capitol Hill. It's free if you come pick it up now. Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: Walk around with this backpack and I'll give it to you. Like, there's a lot of you know, that's another option. I guess you would call that a patsy, a fall Yeah. Speaker 0: Maybe a rogue agent at some alphabet agency that was radically politicized that never imagined that Donald Trump could win reelection. Reelection. Speaker 1: Yeah. That's the thing too. I don't think any of these folks I do let me back up, because I have to say this. Something if we believe today's FBI's story that this case was covered up for four years, and they're being charitable and and alluding to incompetency. But you can't be this incompetent. Right? If you've got these cell phone pings and it's and it's dead to rights, how could you be this incompetent? If you believe today's FBI story, then you need to make some arrests at the FBI. You definitely if you don't I think there need to be arrests at the FBI and prosecutions, and they're of the people who were there who covered this up, because you can't say it was just bad investigation. And you need to be firing everybody who touched this case because they're not gonna solve the next case if you believe that. Speaker 0: If you've made it this far into the show, it means I must be doing something right. Kibbe on Liberty is just one of the amazing products we created for the people. We tell emotionally compelling stories and produce educational videos for the liberty curious. Our award winning documentaries personalize all things liberty, independence, creativity, hard work, integrity, and perseverance. After the show, check out our work at freethepeople.org. If you like what you see, donate to support what we do. That's freethepeople.org. Now back to the show. You may know this better than me, but there was a lot of talk about cleaning house at at the FBI. Certainly, Kash Patel's entire pre nomination and confirmation story was we have to clean house. I think he actually argued that we need to shut it down. Right. Has there been a house cleaning? You This aware of Speaker 1: Jocelyn Ballantine or Ballantine, she's she's still there at DOJ and she's been not not only she's there, she's the lead prosecutor against this suspect now, which and we already know she's bi, so that part hasn't been cleaned house. They didn't say they fired the people that worked on this case. They said they brought in a new like, they they moved those people off to the side and brought in a new crew, and that's how they made this breakthrough. What here's here's another possibility that needs to be discussed, because this is the one that Kyle Sarifen, I think, has has mentioned as a possibility, that the FBI really isn't that incompetent, that they did have this, gentleman as a suspect, and they found enough information to clear his name already and never went to the trouble of arresting him and doing a press release. Because there was something extenuating, something that exonerated him. That's also a case that, you know, there may be a not a smoking gun. What's the opposite of a smoking gun? You know, a a rock solid alibi for this individual that they discovered. Yeah. Or it could be I mean, the there's another there here's the thing. This video that I'm making with you is gonna be there forever. Right? It people will go back and say, oh, Massey thought this. He was wrong. I think in terms of probability. Okay? Very few things are black and white until we until I can hold the evidence in my hands. So there's a probability assigned with every one of these outcomes. I'm not saying any of these are are certain at all. There's a theory that and and this would mean that FBI individuals need to be arrested. There's a theory that they identified this guy, and they were fairly certain he was the pipe bomber, and he didn't match the profile. He's black. His his parents, at least, are liberals. He's and so they didn't they didn't wanna disrupt this narrative that they were using to, jail all these January because if if the pipe bombs had been set by, you know, a MAGA person, which was the presumption all this time, then that enhanced the prosecutions. And they didn't wanna take that away. If that is the case, then there then where are the arrests? I want to see arrests, like, today at the FBI. I'm not seeing those arrests. So I don't really put much stock in that probability. Speaker 0: You know, I'm I'm thinking back to Jimmy Kimmel, why he was temporarily fired and then rehired, but he he made this categorical statement that the the guy that shot Charlie Kirk, that assassinated Charlie Kirk was a MAGA guy. And fast forward to this and and all of all the stories about who may have murdered Charlie Kirk, there is no credible story that it was a guy. Fast forward to this, that the initial story, I I don't remember where it came out, but the the initial leaked story about the accused pipe bomber was that he was a MAGA guy that was disappointed, felt that the election had been stolen and had magically been purchasing the materials he needed to make bombs even before he knew that the election was stolen. But that's That must Where does that leak come from? Like Speaker 1: Well, there's a there's a theory behind that, which which I think is not probable if he didn't have a lawyer present. And, but there was one theory that, you know, Trump did blanket pardons of all the MAGA people that were present on January 6, and that he would hear and his lawyers had a strategy of qualifying for that pardon if he claimed that he was upset with the election, and that's why he did it. That's that's hard to believe if his lawyer wasn't present. I don't I don't think this man Speaker 0: Do we know if there was a lawyer present? Speaker 1: Who's operating at the psychological level of a 16 year old could have contrived that himself. It may be more likely that somebody's this prosecutor, who had him in there without a lawyer, said, look, you you know, I don't want this interview to go on forever. I know you wanna get back to your family. The easiest way to get this over is just to confess that you were upset about the election. And if you're, you know, autistic and troubled and your life's just been rocked, and you think that's the easiest way out of there, you'll you may say it. Yeah. I think that's more probable. If if there's any merit to the reporting at all. Like, these are all leaks. Who was in that room? Like, not very many people were in that room. And then who was privy to what was said in that room? Not very many people, but they're all government people. So these are all just leaks for the most part. Anything that's not in the affidavit or the arrest warrant, if if it's not in that, we don't know that it's true at all. And the and the press press conference that Patel and Bongino and Bondi and the Metro Police that they all did, it was almost completely content free. Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. One last thing before I wanna I wanna move on to better news about about the release of the Epstein files. The final question and this this is more guidance for the audience. Everyone should go back and watch your full, I think it was hour and fifteen minute conversation with Steve Baker where you had new video footage and you're watching Capitol Hill police officers magically, not just quickly find the two pipe bombs, but magically go to the third place in front of the Congressional Black Caucus that that the bomber had visited Visited. The night before. Summarize that quickly just because it goes to your second point. There's no there's no way this guy did this alone if you believe any of this stuff. Speaker 1: Right. It's the Or if Speaker 0: you believe your eyes, I should say. Speaker 1: It's It defies any reasonable probability probability to to think think, that they found a pipe bomb the minutes before the breach happened at the Capitol and that, this team of counter surveillance officers walked. They first walked straight to that location that we didn't know about until Steve Baker published the story in the video. Armitas had put it online, but it didn't get much attention. They drive their patrol vehicle to a parking lot. They get out of it, and they walk straight to where the pipe bomber had tried to place a bomb the night before and had spent seventy seven seconds doing something under a bush. They went straight to that bush, walked by it, didn't see anything, lingered for thirty seconds a few yards from the bush, went back to the bush, went him craned his neck and looked under the bush, didn't see anything, and they go straight to the DNC. It's not like there's a wandering path. It's not like they were looking under other bushes. They looked under exactly two bushes. And they were the exact two places that the pipe bomber had been the night before. One where it unsuccessfully placed a bomb, and the other where the bomb was placed. If if we I mean, we still aren't for sure that that person put those bombs there the night before. There's there's dispute even by the person who found the first pipe bomb, Carlin Younger. She found the first pipe bomb. Barry Loutermilks reached out to do, I think, a transcribed interview with her because she works for FirstNet, which got, like, a 90,000,000 FBI contract shortly after all this. She found the first pipe bomb. She said she was going to go do her laundry and it was sitting out there. But a a and then she saw them report in the news, I guess, that they had been planted the night before, but she called the FBI tip line and said, no. This was not there. The when I went by it the first time, it was there later. So, you know, there's some discrepancy there. Like, was the pipe bomb placed the night before the one behind the the Capitol Hill Club that's next to the RNC? There's that discrepancy. But there are a lot of things that just for this to be settled, the FBI needs to this today's FBI, Cash Patel and Dan Bongino, need to explain. You know, there need to be some more transcribed interviews with individuals. They need to explain a lot more of the information. They need to explain why the former FBI folks did not follow-up some of these leads all the way. Speaker 0: Do you think that will happen? You guys I have the power to make that Speaker 1: don't have the power. But if the public persists, they have the power. It might be a good segue into the Epstein stuff. Yeah. Because they're I mean, they're trying to memory hole a lot of this. There's still there's obviously still elements at the FBI, whether they're criminally complicit or just embarrassed. They just want they just want this to go away. And they still work there. And the prosecutor in charge of this case, she still got it out for Trump. And so she's still there. If we if there isn't constant pressure, something else will come out. But I do have faith, you know, Steve Baker and and some of these private sleuths are still tracking down things that raise more questions than they give answers to. And so I have I have faith in the crowdsourcing of this. Speaker 0: Okay. What what I wanna do is is probably end this episode and then do a bonus episode Epstein. So let's end this here. Okay. And if you're a loyal viewer, you will want to stay tuned for the next episode. Thanks for watching. If you liked the conversation, make sure to like the video, subscribe, and also ring the bell for notifications. And if you wanna know more about Free the People, go to freethepeople.org.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - November 23, 2021 at 10:35 AM
Saved - October 12, 2025 at 8:18 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

I asked Atty General Merrick Garland, who was under oath, if agents or assets of the federal government were encouraging or directing protestors on Jan 5 and Jan 6. He refused to answer on the grounds that there were ongoing investigations. He could have answered that question.

@ColumbiaBugle - The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸

.@joerogan Discussing The Curious Case Of Ray Epps & January 6th "He did it pre-January 6th, he did it during the January 6th thing, and that this guy has faced no legal charges whatsoever, and people are like well wtf is going on here?" https://www.revolver.news/2021/10/meet-ray-epps-the-fed-protected-provocateur-who-appears-to-have-led-the-very-first-1-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol/

Video Transcript AI Summary
Discussion centers on the agent provocateur angle of January 6. They claim there were federal agents involved in instigating the violence and entering the Capitol, and that "this one guy" has faced no legal consequences while others face "massive federal charges and four years plus in jail." They compare to the World Trade Organization riots in Seattle '99, saying "literal government agents went in wearing antifa outfits" to provoke violence and were released conveniently. They focus on "Ray Epps, the Fed protected provocateur who appears to have led the first January 6 attack on the US Capitol," referencing a Revolver article and a video. They debate whether he was initiated by government, radicalized and acting on his own, or a rogue agent; they note it shows intelligence agency problems. They worry about autocratic solutions and how social media exposes such cases; they end with "Red or black" and Ray Epps.
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Speaker 0: Are you aware of the agent provocateur aspect of January 6? Speaker 1: Say more. Speaker 0: I don't exactly know what the reality is, but the what people insinuating is that there was federal agents that were involved in instigating the violence, instigating the entering into the capital, and that there's this one guy in specific that they've got him isolated on video. They've shown him over and over again. He's faced no legal consequences. They know this guy's name. They know exactly who he is. All these other guys are in jail. All these other guys who got into the capital, I mean, so many of them are facing, like, these massive federal charges and four years plus in jail. This one guy is like, we have to go in there. We have to take back. We have to get inside there. And people start calling him a thud in in one one of these videos, and I think he, like, takes off and runs away. But this is what it seems like. It seems like and this is something that governments have done forever. Mhmm. Right? You take a peaceful protest. What's the best way to break up a peaceful protest? You bring in agent provocateurs to turn it into a non peaceful, a violent protest, smash windows, light things on fire, then you can send in the troops and you can clean up the mess, and then you don't have any protest anymore. This was the World Trade Organization in where was it? In Seattle in '99 or whatever it was. That's what they did. And it's been documented that that is what happened. I mean, like, literal government agents went in wearing antifa outfits and starts this is pre antifa. Right? Smashing windows, lighting things on fire, and they were all eventually released conveniently. Well, this guy do you know about this, Jamie? You know what? See if you can find it. Because it's a curious case of this one particular individual who's, like, yelling in these various groups that we have to get in there where and it like, he did it pre January 6. They did it during the January 6 thing, and then these guys faced no legal charges whatsoever. And people are like, well, what the fuck is going on here? Because when you see some kind of organized debacle like that and then you see people insisting that we have to take this further and we have to go inside. And then if you find out that those people are actually federal agents Mhmm. That are doing that, you're like, well, what is happening here? And how is that possible? And how is this legal? That's a problem. Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean Speaker 2: I haven't seen this one. I remember the umbrella man who was breaking windows at the George Floyd riots. Speaker 0: I think they found out that that guy was a cop and that I think that was like a rogue human, but no. I'm not sure if that's true. Speaker 2: But So this is where it's interesting with in this case, I don't know the case at all, but is it that somebody in government actually initiated him doing it as an agent provocateur to shut down the protest, or was he someone who happened to be in government who was himself radicalized who acting on his own because of radicalization did the thing? Speaker 0: Or is he an agent provocateur but he's doing so independently just because he's a fucking psycho? You know, some firemen start fires. Speaker 1: Right. But notice that's, like, whichever view you have, you probably had a motivated interest to see it that way. Right? Speaker 0: Yeah. I didn't have any view on it. Right. That's the thing. I'm looking at it like this. Like, what is it? What is this video? Yeah. I'm watching this guy eat like, this one big beefy looking federal agent guy telling them they gotta go inside, and I think he was wearing a MAGA hat. And, you know, it was like a guy in his fifties then and he's like, I'll you what we gotta do. We gotta get inside there. We gotta go inside the Capitol. Speaker 1: And these people are like, inside? Like, isn't that illegal? Like, what the fuck? Speaker 0: This guy's taking it to the next level. But he's doing it, like, multiple times. That's the the the there's a there is a real problem with intelligence agencies doing that kind of shit. Totally. Because they do do it. And I think they do it thinking that this is like these group of fucking psychos, like, we gotta stop this from escalating, so here's the way. We get them to do something really stupid, then we can put fences up and create a green zone, and then we lock this down. Meet Ray Epps. Fucking ad clicks. Meet Ray Epps, the Fed protected provocateur who appears to have led the very first one six attack January 6 attack on The US capital. So let's watch some of this because it's fucking crazy. It's really weird. This guy is doing this, like, over and over and over again. Speaker 3: Yeah. This was there's a video of it, but this is an article about Speaker 0: probably So this is an article that's in Revolver. Speaker 3: Hold on. I'll get the video. Speaker 0: We'll find the video because the video is fucking strange. Ray Epps' video. Speaker 3: Here it is. Like this. Well, that's twenty minutes long. Speaker 0: Well, just watch we'll see some of it. Oh, these are guys that are watching it. What about that one? Speaker 3: That's goes to a website. These are on Twitter. Speaker 0: Arrest rave epps. So so people are some people are hip to it. But most people, like, including you guys, have no idea that this is a a person. Right? You've never heard of this before. What terrifies me is a solution of this is an autocratic government that controls all aspects of society so none of this ever happens. That scares the shit out of me because that seems to be where there's that fuck. Let's play this. Speaker 1: The capital. What? Tomorrow? Speaker 0: Wait. Do it from the beginning. Speaker 1: I don't even like to say Tomorrow. I'm not We need to go into the capital. Jesus. Hang on. Into the capital. What? Tomorrow? Speaker 0: Either what? Speaker 1: I don't even like to say it because I'll be arrested. Well, let's not say it. We need we need to go I'll say it. Alright. We need to go in Speaker 0: Shut the fuck up, boomer. Speaker 1: To the Capitol. Alright. No, Dave. But one more thing. Yeah. So can we go up there? No? When we go in? Are we gonna get arrested if go out there? Yeah. You don't need to get shot. You're gonna arrest us all? Speaker 0: Okay. I think we see enough. There's a lot of instances. It goes on for quite a while. There's a lot of videos of this guy, is really fascinating because I think these methods that they've used forever are kinda subverted by social media because you have a 100,000 different cameras pointed at this guy from all these and when someone starts screaming loudly, people start filming it, and then you get a conglomeration or or collection of these rather. Mhmm. And you can go, oh, what is happening here? Like like, I don't think they've realized that people would be so cynical that they would go over all these various videos and find this one guy who's not being prosecuted or arrested. Speaker 1: He's not being prosecuted or arrested. Speaker 0: Ting. Congratulations. Speaker 1: Yeah. Know. No. He's not. Speaker 0: Look at that guy. Yeah. I mean, if you had a guess, if you had, like, $50, what are you gonna put your your chips on? Red or black?
Meet Ray Epps: The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears to Have Led the Very First 1/6 Attack on the US Capitol - Revolver News In order to protect the country from fictional right-wing "patriot" groups, did the FBI become an insurrectionist "patriot" movement? revolver.news
RepThomasMassie
Posted - September 24, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Saved - September 27, 2025 at 8:31 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

🚨 Senior DOJ Investigator who says he interviewed victims for the government’s Epstein case spills the beans on a hidden camera.

@JamesOKeefeIII - James O'Keefe

WORLD EXCLUSIVE BOMBSHELL: Senior DOJ Epstein Investigator Reveals ‘Epstein Was CIA’ — Confirms ‘R-pes Occurred While Bill Clinton Was on the Plane’ — Says of President Trump, "He’s Protecting a Lot of Other People… He’s Not Protecting Himself, Because There’s Nothing There" "I’ve interviewed all the victims, There's never been an instance where Trump was on a plane with these kids and the r-pes occurred. But that can't be said for Clinton. And it can't be said for others." “They [DOJ] didn't want to go after him [Epstein] because he's an asset for the United States and Israel” "It's not talked about yet but, it's soon to come out that he [Epstein] was a CIA informant." @TheJusticeDept @AGPamBondi

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Glenn Prager, a DOJ investigator who worked on the Epstein case, asserts: 'the DOJ did not want to go after Epstein because he's a CIA asset.' He says 'the evidence from his investigation confirms that Bill Clinton was present for alleged rapes on the Lolita Express' and that 'president Trump was not present for the rapes that Glenn Prager investigated, but that he is protecting a lot of other people.' He adds, 'The Clintons were on the plane' and 'there were rapes that occurred.' Prager contends, 'Epstein worked for the CIA and is a foreign asset' and that 'they killed the Epstein list to protect the Clintons.' He notes Epstein victims were paid off 'anywhere from a 150 to $500,000.' A donation appeal follows: 'Please donate to our five zero one c three nonprofit Citizen Journalism Foundation to continue funding these types of investigative reports.'
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Speaker 0: It's not talked about yet, but it soon come out Uh-huh. That he was a CIA. Speaker 1: He was a CIA. Speaker 2: He wasn't a CIA. Speaker 0: I think he's protecting a lot of other people. It's not he's not protecting himself because there's nothing there, but he's protecting a lot of people. Because Trump's now saying it's a hoax of the case, like, a hoax or something. Mean, I know it's not a hoax. Speaker 3: He's been on the plane, Speaker 0: you know, many times. It's just he was never on the plane with kids. I've seen the itineraries, and and I've interviewed all the victims. There's never been an Speaker 4: instance where Trump was on a Speaker 0: plane with these kids Mhmm. And a rape occurred. But that can't Speaker 5: be said for Clinton, and it can't Speaker 0: be said for others. While the Clintons were on the plane while Speaker 6: the Trump Clinton was on the plane, there Speaker 0: were rapes that occurred. Speaker 7: Overheard at Phoenix Airport on 09/08/2025, a senior justice department investigator who personally worked on the Epstein case tells all. Glenn Prager, who has reviewed Epstein itineraries and has interviewed Epstein's victims, drops a bombshell. He says that the DOJ did not want to go after Epstein because he's a CIA asset, that the evidence from his investigation confirms that Bill Clinton was present for alleged rapes on the Lolita Express and that president Trump was not present for the rapes that Glenn Prager investigated, but that he is protecting a lot of other people that were. Speaker 1: How about this whole, this whole Epstein thing that's like Speaker 0: I worked on that case. I used to interview all the victims. And then my picture was 20 to 30 victims Speaker 5: Uh-huh. You know, Speaker 0: in Palm Beach that I was interviewing and dealing with and stuff like that. And then we would go would flip. Epstein would just pay them off, and they were just, like, kids. They would pay off their fam. They're all broke kids and poor families and all. So you pay them off, like, like, anywhere from a 150 to $500,000, nothing in that guy's fault. Speaker 7: Prager there describes how the victims that he interviewed were paid off by Epstein right before going to trial. Prager has worked as an investigator inside the Department of Justice for over twenty years. According to Prager's LinkedIn about page, it says that during the tenure at DOJ, Prager served as an inspector overseeing sensitive investigations involving major DOJ components, including the FBI, DEA, Bureau of Prisons, US Marshals Service, ATF, and the US Attorney's Offices. This seems to corroborate what Prager told us. He was tasked with interviewing Epstein's rape victims and investigating flight logs. On his backpack in the airport, we spotted an embroidered FBI patch, which caught the attention of our citizen journalist. Speaker 0: I'll tell you this because no no it's not talked about yet, but it soon come Speaker 5: out Uh-huh. Speaker 0: That he was a CIA. Speaker 1: He was a CIA. Speaker 2: He wasn't a CIA. Speaker 7: Although many have suspected it to be the case, this is the first time a Department of Justice official has confirmed that Epstein worked for the CIA and is a foreign asset. Speaker 0: So DOJ was settling the case and they were just letting him, you know, do arrest and do they minimize his arrest. Part of that is because all the victims kept on flipping, and they didn't have anyone to go to trial with. More importantly, part is they didn't wanna go after him. He's a, you know, he was a asset for United States and Israel for the CIA. I just know that's that's what he was. And that's why he was prepared for so long for this. And people turn a blind eye about all this garbage that he's doing in The United States. Mhmm. Speaker 5: He'd get Speaker 0: a lot of secrets. You know, with more about Israeli stuff than anything else. I mean, he was doing stuff for Israel and The United States. He was, you know, he's working for both. Speaker 7: Glenn Prager, the Department of Justice investigator on the Epstein case, then talks about whether president Trump was involved. Many are trying to tie Trump to Epstein, but what Glenn Prager says is that Trump wasn't present during the inappropriate sexual behavior that he was investigating. But Prager does say that Bill Clinton was. Backed up by his experience interviewing the victims and reviewing the Epstein Lolita Express itineraries, quote, they killed the Epstein list to protect the Clintons. Speaker 0: They they claim that, you know, that Trump's, you know, involved in the rapes and all that stuff, and he he wasn't. I mean, I've seen the agendas. I've I've seen the itineraries, and I've interviewed all of the victims. There's never been Speaker 4: an instance where Trump was on Speaker 0: a plane with these kids Mhmm. And the rape occurred. But that can't Speaker 5: be said for Clinton, and it can't Speaker 0: be said for others. I remember that it was being killed because I know Clinton's were on there. Speaker 1: The Clinton's were on there? Speaker 0: A 100%. And while the Clintons were on Speaker 6: the plane while the Clintons on the plane, Speaker 0: there were briefs that occurred. And that's what I'm saying. Although as many flights as there were and all that kind of stuff and are on the island and all stuff, there's he was never there during a single alleged raid. But Clinton, for sure, and that's where the big cover was. Speaker 7: The Department of Justice investigator inside the Trump Justice Department says that while Trump may not have been present during the crimes that Prager investigated, it is clear that Trump is, quote, protecting a lot of people. Speaker 0: I don't know what's new that I have never seen that that he's, so hesitant to now show what's going on, you know, and releasing all his files. Think he's protecting a lot of other people. It's not he's not protecting himself because there's nothing there, but he's protecting a lot of people. Speaker 7: The citizen journalist boarded American Airlines flight sixteen thirty four and landed in DC Monday at 08:00 at night and proceeded to go to dinner with this man, this DOJ investigator at a restaurant called Blue Duck Tavern. Glenn Prager dislikes the fact Trump said the Epstein scandal is a hoax, but he also says, according to the evidence from his investigation, that Trump is not covering up for himself. Speaker 0: Because Trump's now saying it's a hoax. It's a the case is like a hoax or something. Mean, you know it's not a hoax. He does a lot of says lots of good stuff. Speaker 3: He's been on the plane, Speaker 0: you know, many times. It's just he was never on the plane with kids. People wanna tie it to him and say he's covering up for himself, but he's not. Speaker 7: Now, is a very good thing for president Trump and seemingly exonerates him for many people who claim that he was doing something inappropriate himself. This dinner went on for an hour and forty five minutes as this Department of Justice investigator revealed things to a stranger that the leadership of the FBI and the Department of Justice has not. Prager revealed more information about Trump's hesitation to be fully transparent with the Epstein case, gave us some details about internal gripes against FBI director Cash Patel from within the FBI, and he detailed a developing feud between Cash Patel and attorney general Pam Bondi. If you'd like to see more of that conversation in the restaurant, you may subscribe to OMG and find it on our website. Speaker 1: Who is like the one name where you're like, oh my god. Speaker 7: Here he is. Hey there. Is this Glenn? You're you work for the Department of Justice. Correct? No. You you don't work for the Department of Justice? You had a patch in your backpack that said FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation in the airport? Yeah. And you you talked about how you interviewed the Epstein people, all the Epstein victims. Do you recall that conversation? Speaker 0: I didn't no. I don't know. How can I help you? Speaker 7: I wanted to confirm that you, in fact, do work for did work for the department. Hang on to the phone. Let's try calling him again. Speaker 0: Glenn? I'm not talking to you. Well, if I don't know who you are, I'm not talking to Speaker 7: You you you already did speak to my my friend. Speaker 0: Okay. Now stop off. I don't know who you are. Speaker 7: I'm I'm a I'm a journalist. I need your I need your help, Speaker 0: I'm not talking to you or any journalist about anything. Speaker 7: You need to interview the Epstein victims. Speaker 0: I'm not here. I can't talk to you. Speaker 7: On the heels of releasing this story, I wanted to emphasize just how touching it was for me to see Erika Kirk stand on stage in front of those 74,000 people in a stadium and say that she forgives the assassin who killed her husband, Charlie Kirk. I actually took this photo standing right in front of her when she did that and I wept. The people standing next to me also wept. In the couple days that followed since that Sunday, it dawned upon me that equally as important as forgiving those who trespass against us is for those of us, the living, to achieve justice and accountability for the bad actors behind the scenes corrupting this country. We must have a department of justice that is actually about justice. If we do not have any accountability for bad actors, good people, even God fearing people, are going to resort not to forgiveness but vengeance. We cannot allow that to happen, and the only solution is exposure, journalism, sunlight as the best disinfectant. When the leadership in our government is not forthcoming and transparent about matters they should be, you will see men on the front lines, men on the inside like this Glenn Prager guy who are familiar with the files, familiar with Epstein, familiar with who's on the airplanes. Indeed, he's the guy who actually interviewed all the victims in Palm Beach. Well, you'll see people like this be forthcoming and honest when their leadership isn't. I recognize Prager's life has now changed forever. You might be tempted to focus on that and focus on him personally. We have no doubt that no matter how much proof is provided by me, the powers that be will deny, deflect, personalize, and cover all of this up. You may wonder how it is these guys in our government so brazenly open up to total strangers in airports about national security secrets. Please note, this isn't about him or Glenn Prager. It's about opening the floodgates of honesty from other men who are just like Glenn Prager, but who never wanted to be involved, were just following orders. Prager lived with these secrets and the whore of what he knows lives on his conscience, the weight on his shoulders. He lives with a guilt for knowing the truth. That is why he was so forthcoming in public in the airport. That is why others with national security secrets will continue to be so forthcoming to our army of citizen exposures. And there are many more out there like Glenn Prager. And now, right now, you who are watching must come forward and tell the truth and be transparent. Be a hero and do the right thing. In the last few weeks, I've reached out to top officials of the Department of Justice repeatedly ahead of these reports. Our attorneys even sent a letter to the FBI director Cash Patel. There seems to be more of an interest, generally speaking, in covering their ass instead of telling the truth. While we expect that of the previous administrations, we expect better of the Trump administration and those who campaigned on the promise of transparency. Now, I was advised that reaching out far ahead of time would lead to this story being suppressed, something that my team and I dare say all of the people who actually voted for this administration can't comprehend. But these reports are going to continue coming out and they will not be partisan or political. They're gonna cut across the political divide because this is not a political mission and I am not a political person. It is my mission to clean up society through transparency, accountability, and the truth. I wrote last week the legacy of Charlie Kirk is to do the right thing for the right reasons. And reflecting on his legacy, I saw a remarkable change within him in the last couple years, but especially the last couple months of observing him from afar and also knowing him personally. I reached out to Charlie to solicit his advice ahead of this story. I was expecting Charlie Kirk to express the same reluctance as the top DOJ officials relayed to me. The same officials that Charlie no doubt in some part or in some way matter shape or form helped to get their jobs in the first place. I told Charlie I was conflicted about what to do and Charlie Kirk's last words to me were, James, you should be a journalist first. This kind of journalism is dangerous, legally taxing, and certainly not profitable. If we are continue to uncover these dark truths, we need your help now. Please donate to our five zero one c three nonprofit Citizen Journalism Foundation to continue funding these types of investigative reports. The nonprofit again is called Citizen Journalism Foundation. The donations are fully tax deductible, and information can be found at okeithmediagroup.com/donate.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - September 26, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Saved - September 27, 2025 at 8:31 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

I was the first to put Garland and Wray on the spot for the massive FBI presence among the protestors on J6. They lied and obfuscated when testifying. The reality is: people working for the government participated in the breach of the Capitol. Watch my video. https://t.co/QLKCZDepC6

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

For years I was called a conspiracy theorist for asking Garland, Wray, and Horowitz whether government assets participated in J6. Yesterday I was vindicated. DOJ IG report confirms there were FBI confidential human sources in the crowd, entering the Capitol, and breaking laws. https://t.co/0spxGu6Wt9

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Speaker 0 pressed whether federal agents or assets were present on January 5 and 6, whether they agitated to enter the Capitol, and whether any did. Speaker 1 refused to comment on an ongoing investigation, saying, 'I'm not gonna violate this norm of the rule of law. I'm not gonna comment on an investigation that's ongoing.' He later said, 'I don't know the answer to that question' when asked how many agents or assets were involved or if any entered the Capitol. The discussion moved to confidential human sources (CHS). Speaker 2 said, 'Our report will include the information in that regard,' but noted it is 'in draft form' and not yet through classification review. On release timing, he said it would be 'in the next couple of months' but may not come before the election. He stated CHS protocols should be followed, and four years into the process, delays.
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Speaker 0: Okay. Without I I was hoping today to give you an opportunity to put to rest the concerns that people have that there were federal agents or assets of the federal government present on January 5 and January 6. Can you tell us without talking about particular incidents or particular videos how many agents or assets of the federal government were present on January 6, whether they agitated to go into the capital, and if any of them did? Speaker 1: And so I'm not gonna violate this norm of of of the rule of law. I'm not gonna comment on an investigation that's ongoing. Speaker 0: Now in that video, that was your answer to a question to me two years ago. When I said how many agents assets of the government were present on January 5 and January 6 and agitating in the crowd to go into the capital and how many went into the capital. Can you answer that now? Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to that question. Speaker 0: Oh, last time, you don't know how many there were or there were none? Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to either of those questions. If there were any, I don't know how many. You've had don't know whether there are any. Speaker 0: I think you may have just perjured yourself that you don't know that there were any. You want to say that again? That you don't know that there were any? Speaker 1: Personal knowledge of this matter. I think what I said the last time Speaker 0: You've had two years to find out, you know, were there any confidential human sources involved from the FBI or any other agency in the erection of that prop, those gallows? Speaker 2: I'm not aware of anything like that. Speaker 0: Inspector General Horowitz, over the past three years, I've questioned FBI Director Ray and Attorney General Merrick Garland about the federal assets such as confidential human sources that were present on January 6 at the Capitol, and they have continuously stonewalled me. We've got no answers whatsoever about this from them. Do you have evidence, of the number of confidential human sources that were operating on the Capitol Grounds on January 6? Speaker 2: Our report will include the information in that regard. Speaker 0: Can can you tell us today how many there were? Were there more than a 100? Speaker 2: I'm not in a position to to say that both because it's in draft form and we have not gone through the classification review, and so I I need to be careful. Speaker 0: And we're four years almost four years into this report. When is it gonna be released? Speaker 2: It's certainly my hope and expectation, although I don't control this entirely because it has to go through a classification review. But certainly, in the next couple of months is my hope. Do you think Speaker 0: there any consideration for the election about the release of this report? Would you delay it in order to not release it before the right before the election? Speaker 2: At this point, given the process that has to play out in terms of classification review and all of that, I'm not making any I don't have to make any judgment about that. We're still that's the last one. Just but do you give a sense of when I did the Pfizer Are Speaker 0: you you're saying it's not even gonna be done in time for the before the election? Speaker 2: It's it doesn't doubt it would be done in time for the election. Speaker 0: We know what we do know is you're gonna expose that there were confidential human sources at the capital. Do you can you tell us today how many went into the capital? Speaker 2: We I'll have that information report. I'm not able to speak to information in there both because it's in draft and we get a response from the department and the FBI, but also because I don't know yet what's classified and not classified. Speaker 0: So if they broke the law, if they went into the capital, which I we pretty much know there were confidential human sources who went into the capital and right there alongside of everybody else, Wouldn't they need to follow DOJ CHS protocols? And do you know if those were followed? Speaker 2: They they should follow CHS protocols. And, again, we'll include that information in the report. Speaker 0: Do you know how many were reimbursed for travel? Speaker 2: As I sit here, I don't recall the number. You But I but I recall or you won't tell us? Well, and if I didn't know it, I I wouldn't be in a position to tell you because we still have Speaker 0: to go through four years into this. Start I mean, you're supposed to be the the organization that goes and gets these answers when the FBI and the DOJ stonewall congress. But I feel like, you know, we're four years into this. We're not even gonna get this information you're telling us now before the election.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - September 27, 2025 at 1:34 AM
Saved - September 27, 2025 at 5:44 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

😂 “New Report Indicates Only 3 People In Jan 6 Crowd Were Not FBI Agents” The Bee nails it. The headline is usually 90% of the joke, but this article is worth reading! https://babylonbee.com/news/new-report-indicates-only-3-people-in-jan-6-crowd-were-not-fbi-agents

New Report Indicates Only 3 People In Jan 6 Crowd Were Not FBI Agents WASHINGTON, D.C. — According to a new report, only three people in the crowd at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, were not FBI agents. babylonbee.com
RepThomasMassie
Posted - September 17, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Saved - September 17, 2025 at 7:20 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Biden’s FBI raided @JamesOKeefeIII’s home, but the search warrant they used is still almost completely redacted. O'Keefe deserves to know why he was raided. I introduced the search warrant into the record during today's @JudiciaryGOP hearing and asked that it be unredacted. https://t.co/4pQGzNx3IS

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The second document that I wanna submit to the record, for the record, I know we don't usually read these. This one's not readable. It's completely redacted. For the most part, the first 50 pages. This is actually the search warrant that was served on James O'Keefe for a diary that he had already given to the government two months before. And as it turns out, there were no indictments here, yet he still doesn't know why he was raided, and I think he deserves to know. Objection. Thank you.
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Speaker 0: The second document that I wanna submit to the record, for the record, I know we don't usually read these. This one's not readable. It's completely redacted. For the most part, the first 50 pages. This is actually the search warrant that was served on James O'Keefe for a diary that he had already given to the government two months before. And as it turns out, there were no indictments here, yet he still doesn't know why he was raided, and I think he deserves to know. Objection. Thank you.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - September 6, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Saved - September 6, 2025 at 6:49 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

This is my 30 minute interview with @JamesOKeefeIII about the Epstein files yesterday.

@JamesOKeefeIII - James O'Keefe

Congressman Thomas Massie stood with Jeffrey Epstein survivors at a historic press conference on Capitol Hill, demanding the full release of the Epstein Files. Those demands were echoed by allies from both parties. According to Massie, Speaker Mike Johnson is pushing a placebo resolution, billionaires are spending millions to crush him, and congress members whisper support in private but stay silent in public. I showed Massie a preview of our DOJ investigation that confirmed the pattern of obfuscation that he has been seeing happen around the full Epstein files release. But Massie isn’t backing down. He says the truth will come out, and when it does, D.C. will have to choose between protecting the powerful or standing with the survivors. Epstein Files Transparency Bill Press Conference (1:50) Why Trump Calls the Bill a “Hostile Act” (4:07) Rep. Massie Reacts to OMG’s DOJ Epstein Tapes (6:40) Why the Epstein Client List Remains Hidden (9:06) ‘Private Support, Public Silence’ (11:10) The Outlook for the Transparency Bill (14:28) The Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause (15:45) The Price of Telling the Truth (16:37) Is Trump in the Epstein Files? (20:36) Should More Reps Go Public? (21:15) “My Price Is My Life” (23:00) Inside the SCIF (23:55) Redactions and Concealed Truths (29:31) The Evil Reality of Epstein’s Crimes (31:08) When the Government Lets Criminals Walk Free (33:11) @RepThomasMassie @MassieforKY Listen & Subscribe to My Price Is My Life – Website: https://okeefemediagroup.com/rep-thomas-massie-my-price-is-my-life-with-james-okeefe-11/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/162FNRzcG3Krog00AFzS8A?si=9b0d2ece9d3741bf Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-price-is-my-life-with-james-okeefe/id1728902125 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@okeefemedia

Video Transcript AI Summary
Massey says Republicans fear Trump but privately agree with him: “They’re terrified of president Trump’s political machine.” He notes survivors at yesterday’s press conference were asked if they support Massey’s legislation and “they all raised their hand.” He aims for 218 signatures to force a vote; if not, the Speaker’s actions could allow a rule change to bypass him, though that would still be a record vote on Epstein files. Three women have co-sponsored this resolution: Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, and Nancy Mace. The press conference was described as “the biggest press conference on Capitol Hill in the last five years.” Massey cites heavy intimidation of supporters, fundraising drying up in DC, and $20,000,000 of negative ads from three billionaires, including John Paulson. He cites DOJ insiders: a video claiming “they’ll redact every Republican or conservative person in those files.” He recounts Epstein’s ties to intelligence, Maxwell’s light sentence, and calls for releasing thousands of files, noting survivors’ lists and speech-or-debate immunity as tools to read them publicly. He recalls a vivid SCIF story of Project Phoenix and Nest Egg, illustrating secret budget details.
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Speaker 0: Is it that the Republicans fear Trump so much, but they agree with you privately? How do just talk about that for a minute? Yeah. Is that it? That's it. That's it Speaker 1: in a nutshell. They I don't think, my colleagues are happy about covering up for pedophiles, but that's what's happening. And the and it's so sick and twisted. The reason they're doing it is because they're terrified of president Trump's political machine. He's also gone as far as to say, oh, this could endanger the survivors. But that's false. Every survivor was asked, do you support the legislations Massey's legislation? And they all raised their hand. Speaker 0: What is your price? Because if your price is not your life, then you are for sale. Welcome back to the Price Is My Life podcast. Today, we are off location live in Washington, DC, and I'm with Congressman Massey. Thomas Massey, an MIT trained engineer, inventor, farmer, and one of the most independent voices in Washington coming fresh off the heels of his press conference yesterday with Jeffrey Epstein, survivors representing Kentucky's Fourth District since 2012. He's known as mister no. Is it doctor no or mister no? Speaker 1: Mister no. Speaker 0: Mister no. For his willingness to stand alone against trillion dollar spending bills, government overreach, and even presidents from his own party, own political party, from building a solar powered off grid farm to leading the bipartisan push to release the Epstein files, Massey has lived his life by principle regardless of what you think about him. Liberty isn't negotiable to him even when it comes at a cost. Congressman, thank you for the Price Is My Life podcast. We have, like, thirty minutes. Usually, it's three hours, so we're gonna do lightning round. How do you think it went yesterday? Speaker 1: I was told it's the biggest press conference on Capitol Hill in the last five years. So we had several major networks carry it. Most importantly, the survivors had a platform, and nobody can call this a hoax anymore. I was shocked myself. I was hoping the survivors would compel my colleagues to co sponsor my effort to release these files, but what I found out is it emboldened me to redouble my efforts because I was driven to tears really listening to their stories. Speaker 0: And, you know, I watched the press conference, I was physically there, I was walking around, did know Were Speaker 1: you wearing a disguise? Were you the blonde? Speaker 0: Actually, I did have a wig. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 0: I did have a wig. I was not physically in the gaggle with you. I was off to the side, and I released a video about it yesterday. There was a lot of left wing agitator types there, believe all women, and talking about Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, and I just noticed a lot of what I would characterize as like liberal activists, maybe perhaps using that to their advantage. What are your thoughts on that? Speaker 1: Well, had the bicycle barricades set up. I'm only responsible for what happened inside of the bicycle barricades. Like, there are people claiming that other people at our press conference and they even spoke from the microphone. All we had speaking there were three of us, three members of Congress, myself, my colleague Ro Khanna, and my colleague Marjorie Taylor Green, the 10 survivors and two of their attorneys. Speaker 0: And what do you think is going to happen? Are people going to sign on to this? Speaker 1: I'm almost certain we're going get to two eighteen signatures. That's the threshold we need to force a vote on this. And at that point, they're going to hate me for breathing air up here because Republican members of Congress are going to have to choose which version of Donald Trump they want. Do they want the Donald Trump who ran for office and his vice president who said they would release the files and his attorney general who said they would release the files? Or do they want the Donald Trump who says now it's a hostile act if anybody co sponsors my resolution? Speaker 0: In short, why is the president taking that approach? Speaker 1: I think he has rich and powerful friends who maybe they're not gonna be indicted when this is released, but they'll be embarrassed. And I also think there's a person in his administration who's gonna be embarrassed, Acosta, who was part of the first plea deal. Speaker 0: That was the US attorney? Speaker 1: Yeah, he was the US attorney when Epstein got off easy, and then recommitted all these crimes. Like there are hundreds of victims because Epstein basically went back to his predatory ways after he got that light sentence. So I think that's part of it. And finally, there's government intelligence. Epstein had ties to that, and I don't think the American people are ready to, they're not gonna accept lightly the fact that this guy who was a pedophile was working with our own intelligence agencies and those of foreign countries. Speaker 0: This is James O'Keefe. You know me for exposing the truth and holding the powerful accountable. But today, I wanna talk to you about protecting your own freedom, starting with your finances. Right now, the warning signs are everywhere. The Fed continues to print money. Interest rates and inflation remain high. And everywhere you look, your hard earned money just doesn't go as far as it used to. That's not your imagination. It's today's reality. If central banks are loading up on gold, why not you? That's why I've now partnered with American Independence Gold. They're veteran owned, and proceeds from every sale go to Tunnel to Towers, supporting our first responders and heroes. And listen, right now, the first 50 customers get a $1,000 credit towards their account. That's right. A thousand dollars to help you get started protecting your wealth with real physical gold. Don't wait for the next crisis. Go to okeefmediagold.com. That's 0keefemediagold.com or 833324gold. Again, that's okeifmediagold.com or 833324 Take action, get the facts, and protect your future because freedom isn't given, it's secured. This is James O'Keith. Don't just watch history, own a piece of it. We released a tape. We are about to release a tape. As of the time of this filming, it hasn't been released yet, and I just wanna get your reaction. This is a guy named Joseph Schnitt, acting deputy chief inside the DOJ, and I'm just gonna play a clip here. Speaker 2: They'll redact every Republican or conservative person in those files, leave all the liberal Democratic people in those files. Speaker 0: I mean, they visited that Maxwell person Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 0: Who's been also involved? Speaker 2: Got transferred to a minimum security person too recently, which is against BOP policy because she's she's a convicted sex offender. They're offering her something to keep it by yourself. Speaker 0: That was the acting Okay. So that was someone high up in the DOJ saying they're offering Ghislaine Maxwell something to keep her mouth shut, saying the Epstein files do exist, saying there's thousands of files and they'll redact every Republican person. This guy is pretty credible because he works in the office of enforcement operations. He's kind of an intel guy in the DOJ working with the Bureau of Prisons. What's your reaction to that? Speaker 1: When was that filmed roughly? About a month ago. Yeah, well, he's right, I think. I mean, why would he be lying, first of all, if he didn't know he was being taped? But it's turned out he's right because the DOJ has released some files. First, the attorney general said there's nothing left but child porn in their possession, you know, after she released the phase one binders, Pam Bondi. Well, since then, just recently in the last week, the DOJ has released thousands of pages, but what they've done is to heavily redact all of those pages. So they're taking out the names, as it seems like he predicts there. And also yesterday we heard from survivors who said basically the same thing about Maxwell, that she was getting a light sentence and that you couldn't trust anything that she says because of that, I think she is getting a light sentence. It's almost as suspect as is Jeffrey Epstein killing himself in his cell. This is even more suspect because it's not a conspiracy theory, we know it's happening, and you've got somebody there inside of the DOJ who's admitting that it's highly unusual and unprecedented. Speaker 0: One of the criticisms I was watching the reaction to what you did yesterday, and a lot of the people say, We have our own list. Some of the victims said that, right? We have a and we're going release it ourselves. One of the questions people have is why wouldn't they just release that right away or even at your press conference? Speaker 1: Yeah, they addressed that at the press conference, somebody asked them. And their first answer is why do we have to release the list? Why won't the government release it? Speaker 0: On principle, they're saying the government should do it on principle. Speaker 1: The government should do it because they're responsible for enforcing the law. The victims aren't responsible for enforcing the law. But the biggest reason, they're not releasing the list, and I think I have a solution to this that came up at the press conference yesterday, but the biggest reason they're not releasing it is they could be sued into homelessness, like for defamation. So let's say they accuse somebody of something and then the government doesn't prosecute it and they can't get all of this materials and discovery and whatnot, so then they get the counter suits happen, which has happened to these victims, and then they get blamed, and they get defamed, and it's not worth their time. They also get threatened, they get followed by cars, around their neighborhoods, they get intimidated. So when they said they're going to compile their own list, said, we don't have plans to release it. My colleague Marjorie Taylor Green stepped up to the microphone and reminded America that members of Congress have something constitution called speech or debate immunity that's been rarely used, but it's always enforced, which is to say, we can't be sued for anything we say on the floor of the house. So Marjorie Taylor Greene came up with the idea of if the victims have a list, we'll go to the floor and read the list and we can't be sued or prosecuted for it. And I talked to Marjorie about that after the press conference and we've got some ideas for doing that. Speaker 0: Do you think that a lot I mean, just speak for a moment about the dynamic here, because this is a weird dynamic. You're not anti Trump, or I suppose No. Speaker 1: I endorsed him for president. Speaker 0: So but is is it that Republicans fear Trump so much, but they agree with you privately? I'll just talk about Yeah. That for a Is that it? That's it. That's it Speaker 1: in a nutshell. I don't think my colleagues are happy about covering up for pedophiles, but that's what's happening. And it's so sick and twisted. The reason they're doing it is because they're terrified of President Trump's political machine. His not just his legislative affairs folks are reaching out from the White House to every Republican member of Congress who might think about cosponsoring this. They're getting calls from the political machine that Donald Trump runs. We've got members of Congress who have aspirations of running for statewide office, and they can't run they can't win a statewide office in a Republican primary with Donald Trump on the other side, so they're they're terrified of him, With three big exceptions, three women have co sponsored this resolution. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Nancy Mace. Speaker 0: Why aren't they terrified of President I Speaker 1: think, number one, because they're women, they feel obligated to take up for the women who've been abused. And number two, I think it's harder for the president to go after a woman who's taking up for women. He's been able to intimidate the men into not taking up for the survivors. There's something else going on here too, which is the Speaker of the House is offering political cover for everybody to be part of this ruse. Yesterday, we voted on a resolution that's meaningless, that does nothing, but it supports basically what's already happening in the oversight committee, and he told all the Republicans in a private meeting yesterday, this will give you political cover back home. When you don't support Massey's resolution, which is the real one, by the way, you could I've got this placebo one. Now he didn't call it a placebo, but I've got this other one that you can vote for and you'll have cover. So that is going on, plus you have the Speaker of the House trained to use his bully pulpit to convince members of Congress that there's something defective about my legislation. Here's what's ironic about that. When the speaker created his fake version, he copied three pages directly from my legislation that we wrote right here in this office. So at the same time, he's poo pooing the way my legislation was drafted, he's copied it and taken the teeth out of it. So that's giving a fig leaf for the other members of Congress and a reason. They're saying, oh, it's defective legislation. He's also gone as far as to say, oh, this could endanger the survivors. But that's false because yesterday at my press conference, every survivor was asked, do you support the Massey's legislation? And they all raised their hand. Why would they support my legislation if it's not good for them? They even had their lawyers present who's looked at our legislation. Speaker 0: So, what's the next thing that needs to happen here? What happens next? I need to Speaker 1: get two eighteen signatures. How many have right now? I have two fourteen. I'll probably get two in the next week, and I think I'll get two more in the next two weeks. We'll get to two eighteen. At that point, there's seven days, legislative days that have to pass, and then on the seventh day, Speaker Johnson has a two day window. He can either bring it up then or he can wait two days, but he's got to have a vote on this. There's one trick he can do. He can try to change the rules of the house. See, I'm using the rules as they are written, which says if you can get two eighteen signatures on something, you can bypass the speaker. He could get the rules committee to change the rules mid Congress, but if he does that, he's gotta get two eighteen votes for that trickery, that becomes the vote of record of hiding the Epstein files. So he's kind of boxed in here. Now another thing could happen is the Senate could just refuse to pass this when it goes to the Senate. Because to make this binding legislation, to make it legally a law that the DOJ has to comply with, it has to go through both chambers. Speaker 0: So the women can be sued, but you can't be sued. You were citing, what were Speaker 1: you citing earlier? The speech or debate clause that's in the constitution, and the reason the founders put that in there, it sounds kinda not very populist, right? That there's a special super first amendment for congressmen, but the founders put that in the constitution because the king would always punish members of parliament, like he would convict them for things they said. If they said anything bad about the king, he could arrest them for their words, or people would sue them into oblivion. It might not sound like a good thing at first that you let congressmen lie if they want to. I'm not proposing to lie, by the way. But somebody could use the speech or debate clause to do that. Speaker 0: But how could like, you're gonna have to you're paying a price for this, and you're gonna continue to, I assume. What is the price you're gonna pay? Is it coming after your reelection and the billionaires are are funding your opponents? Like, what is the price you think that you're really gonna have to pay for this? Speaker 1: $20,000,000 of negative ads in my congressional district. Speaker 0: Does that matter to your voters there? Speaker 1: It could. I mean, it's gonna leave a mark. Here's the so there's three billionaires right now. You know, you said what's the price you're going to pay? Let me tell you the price I've already paid. There's three billionaires, two of them are hedge fund managers, and one of them is a casino mogul. One of them is in Epstein's Black Book, John Paulson. They've spent over $2,000,000 running negative ads about me. Not about the Epstein issue, Things like flag burning, they say, oh, Massey is a bad dude because he says flag burning's protected by the First Amendment, and they try to make a negative ad out of that. I'm just siding with Antonin Scalia, like the best person who's ever been in the Supreme Court, you know, in modern day. But those are the kind of ads they run to try to diminish my reputation in my district and get me defeated. Speaker 0: Is that Speaker 1: working? It has some effect on low information voters. I don't think it's affecting the base of support that I have back home. But that's the price Speaker 0: you pay. Like you said, it's not the whole country, it's just a very tiny fraction of people in a very specific place. Right. There's a big difference in Speaker 1: those dynamics. And then the other price I pay is my consultants that you need to win an election, they're leaving me because they're being intimidated by Trump's political machine. You know the old line, you'll never do business in this town if you support this dude. That's literally being told to consultants that I would otherwise hire to help me win this election. Speaker 0: My assumption is that if a congressman here had worn a hidden camera over the last ten, fifteen years, the things that I would see and hear would shock the conscience. Speaker 1: There's one other thing that's going on, where we talk about all the ways you can be punished for speaking out. My fundraising in DC has dried up so much that my fundraiser gave up. You're fundraising in DC? Yeah. So, you know, if you if there's a PAC money, which almost every member gets PAC money up here, my fundraiser says, your prospects of getting PAC money are so dismal, you should just quit raising money in DC. Speaker 0: Do you ever find just being you that once in a while you're just like, this is really, really hard. I can't do this anymore. This is just too tough. Do you ever feel that way? Speaker 1: I think it's the opposite. If they ever quit attacking me, I might say, well this is kind of boring. When they attack me, I feel obligated to win because I know I'm over the target. Dogs don't bark at parked cars, we say back in Kentucky. They wouldn't be spending $20,000,000. You can't hold two thoughts in your head simultaneously. You can't say Massey is ineffective in Washington DC and then also observe that they're spending $20,000,000 against me to get me out of DC. It's the reason they're doing that is I am effective. The press conference we had yesterday was the biggest one up here in five years. Speaker 0: Biggest press conference in Washington. Yeah, Is that because 100 of all the number of press people there or how does that measure? Speaker 1: The number of cameras, the number that were there, the number of networks that carried it live. Speaker 0: And a lot of them are just trying to get a political, you know, cudgel against Trump probably, right? Or is Some of some of the democrats are, Speaker 1: but that's a distraction. I don't think the president himself is implicated in any of these files. If he were, Joe Biden probably would have released these files. Speaker 0: That's why I asked these protesters, they didn't have a good answer for that, by the way. Speaker 1: Yeah. So, this isn't about Donald Trump, it's about people who are actually richer than Donald Trump, and have a lot of influence because they give Do Speaker 0: people go up to you privately, and like I said, just say like, I agree with you, like in this building, to say, hey, I keep doing what you're doing, but I can't talk about it. Does that ever happen to you? Speaker 1: It happens every week. Happens every week. Yeah. People are like And you Speaker 0: have to protect their confidence. You have to protect their anonymity because they're confiding in you that they secretly support you, they don't wanna say so publicly, for example, right? Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if I were to say that, then they would never confide in me again. And those are my closest friends. Speaker 0: Your closest friends. Speaker 1: Your enemies up here don't come and say, I think what you're doing is right, but I just can't be with you, I can't die on this hill, but your friends do. Speaker 0: Do you think that those people, without naming any names, do you think that they should be more brave and say it publicly, or it's just the nature of politics or the nature of human nature that you can't be public with that? Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, I would like for them to join me. For some of them, the political reality is they would probably lose their reelection if Donald Trump came against them. Some of them are here because they were in a seven way primary and they got Donald Trump's endorsement and that was their major redeeming factor in an election where there was no incumbent, so people went with the Trump candidate. And now they're incumbents, but they haven't been here very long and so they haven't built trust with their constituents yet. And by the way, I might be losing my next election over this. You have to get in a headspace where you're okay with that. And too many of my colleagues are not okay with losing their next election if that's what it costs. You said, what's the name of your podcast? Price is My Life. The Price is My Life. Look, it's not even our life, right? The price is my reelection, I would say. Speaker 0: So you are resolved, or you are okay with that possibility? Yeah. Psychologically? Speaker 1: Yeah, and then, you know, when I was at this press conference yesterday with the survivors, I got to thinking, for these survivors, the price is their life. Like, this could ruin their lives by speaking out yesterday. And here I've got members of Congress who won't even take a risk in their next election to do the right thing. Speaker 0: We have five minutes before you have to go vote. Again, this is a lightning round of Price is My Life. We could talk for three hours. Speaker 1: Sorry if my answers are too long. Speaker 0: No, no. Maybe we'll have you back in studio at some point. But you and I spoke recently, and you told me a story. If you could just recount it briefly to the extent you can share, because that was so fascinating, of going inside the SCIF, that's a secure compartmentalized information facility, and I think you were approving budgets, some of it was classified. Yeah. You told me a story about bureaucrats. Can you just recount that story briefly? Speaker 1: So there's a classified annex to the budget. And a lot of my colleagues don't even know this. Like when they're voting for the classified annex, they don't even know that's what they're voting for. But if you're paying attention, you realize, oh, I've got a week to one week, I can go read the classified annex in a skiff. They don't allow you to bring pen and paper in, they don't allow you to take pen and paper out, you can't bring your phone in, you gotta lock it in a locker. Speaker 0: And you Speaker 1: can't bring your staff in. You can't bring your staff in. Imagine, when you get in there, have no smartphone and you have no smart staff, so it's only your own wits. And you can't even bring a pencil and paper or a calculator, and they go in, they let you have a sneak peek at this budget, at the classified annex, and it's basically all the clandestine things that the US government does. And it's, I can say this, it's tens of billions of dollars, I can't give you the exact number, and it's mostly code words. By the way, there's maybe only a dozen out of the 435 people who ever go down and look at this thing. Code words? Code words for each of the projects. Speaker 0: Like military Yeah, like, Speaker 1: I don't know, project Phoenix. Speaker 0: Okay. Speaker 1: So, I'm sitting there reading this thing with three, I'll call them members of the committee staff, the intel committee staff watching me read this. But they're ostensibly they are there to help me understand it. So I'm reading this and I'm like, what is this Phoenix project that has $5,000,000,000? And the three of them look at each other, the three who are responsible for supervising my observation of the budget, and two of them look at one dude and he looks at them and he gets up and leaves the room. And now there's two left. And he said, well, why did he have to leave the room? Well, Project Phoenix is above his level of classification. So they bring out, he leaves the room, they bring out another binder that I'm sure most congressmen don't get to this other binder. Probably 12 you said go in on a 400 or something? Yeah. So then they open the other binder and they're like, well, here's Project Phoenix. And then, well, within Project Phoenix there's Project, let's call it Nest Egg. I'm like, well what's Project Nest Egg? And why is there a billion for it? And the two who are left in the room look at each other, and one of them leaves, and like, let me guess, that the other person couldn't know about Project Nest Egg. Yep. So then I, they tell me about Project Nest Egg. You, now, the only thing I have in there, reference, is a clock, and before I walked in, I had to remember what my next meeting was, and I'm looking at the clock, and I've played 20 questions just to get down into Project Phoenix, and there's probably more binders if I knew the right words to say, you know, abracadabra, then I could get those binders. But this is how hard it is to know what's actually going on in our government. Speaker 0: Wow, how much time were you in that room for? Speaker 1: Like an hour, and just trying to drill down in one little thing to understand it. Now there was another, when I was doing that, there was another congressman in there with me, and he was like, how'd you know to ask for that? I'm like, well, I don't know, I just Speaker 0: thought we should ask about Went to MIT. Yeah. This is James O'Keefe. You know me for exposing the truth and holding the powerful accountable. But today, I wanna talk to you about protecting your own freedom, starting with your finances. Right now, the warning signs are everywhere. The Fed continues to print money, interest rates and inflation remain high, and everywhere you look, your hard earned money just doesn't go as far as it used to. That's not your imagination. It's today's reality. If central banks are loading up on gold, why not you? That's why I've now partnered with American Independence Gold. They're veteran owned, and proceeds from every sale go to Tunnel to Towers, supporting our first responders and heroes. And listen, right now, the first 50 customers get a $1,000 credit towards their account. That's right. A thousand dollars to help you get started protecting your wealth with real physical gold. Don't wait for the next crisis. Go to okeefmediagold.com. That's 0keefemediagold.com or 833324 Again, that's okeithmediagold.com or 833324. Take action, get the facts, and protect your future because freedom isn't given, it's secured. This is James O'Keith. Don't just watch history. Own a piece of speaking of redactions, I sent you the FBI raid affidavit in in my case, where they literally redacted every single word of the probable cause. That's the justification for the search warrant. In a case where they admitted there was no indictment, there was no crime, they redacted every single word. And it stands to reason that if they can't even be transparent about why they why they raided a newsroom, why the Department of Justice raided a journalism organization, they can't even tell you why they did that. It stands to reason they're not gonna tell you, you know, what really happened with Jeff Epstein here. Not voluntarily. Well, not voluntarily. Speaker 1: And so, what's happening right now is they are curating the release of material to the oversight committee, and I showed the chairman of the oversight committee yesterday the documents he was getting. I'm like, here's the flight log. It's completely redacted. Like, not all of the people on that plane were victims. I said somebody had to fly the plane. Like, can we at least know who the pilot was? Like, it was crazy. Speaker 0: Is it all just to protect sources and methods? That's my hypothesis. Speaker 1: I think it's to avoid embarrassment for some very rich and powerful people and I think it is, to some degree, to protect sources and methods, methods of which American people might not approve of if they knew their tax dollars were using those methods. Speaker 0: Very last question, very quickly. What was your favorite moment from your press conference yesterday? Speaker 1: Oh, my favorite moment, I won't call it my favorite moment, I'll tell you what kept me up last night, like sick to my stomach, was when one of the women recanted her story, actually two women, one was in Florida and one was in New York, they basically told the same story. When they were 14, somebody in their high school said, hey, you wanna go give a rich guy a massage and get $200? He's got a really nice house and all this. And she says, sure. She goes, The door closes with Jeffrey Epstein. He sexually assaults her. He tells her, Whenever I call you, you need to come over here and I'll pay you $200 again. And the thing that makes me sick to my stomach is eventually he said, you gotta go back to your high school and bring me another 14 year old. And the girl admitted that she did it because, and she got $200 for doing it, but she didn't have to get sexually abused if she would bring him to somebody else. So, not only was there evil being perpetrated on her, she was convinced to do evil, or forced to do evil. I think that's disgusting. And then what else we learned, this is very close to that same thing is that once they got to be like 16 or 17 or 18, they were too old for Jeffrey Epstein. And he would farm them out to friends, not all of them, but some of them. He would facilitate other people to have sex with, sexually abuse them. This gets to the heart of this matter. Okay, there are two things that went really bad in the Epstein case. Number one, he got off with a very light sentence and then committed these heinous acts to hundreds of kids. Like, before this press conference, I wondered, should I be calling him a pedophile or were these, like, older, you know, girls? No. He was a pedophile. He didn't even want them once they got to the legal age of consent. So two things went really bad. For some reason, Anacosta himself who works in the Trump administration now said back when he was the prosecutor that it was, that Epstein was tied to government intelligence, okay, but for some reason they let him go back out and recommit these things. And then the other thing that's really bad about this situation, which is what I want to get to, is he had, it wasn't just Maxwell and Epstein who committed these crimes. There were other people involved. There were people that facilitated it, there were people who participated in it, and none of them have seen one day in jail. And a lot of those are still out there, and the DOJ wants you to believe they don't know who they are. That's preposterous. That's like, if you're an American and you're saying, and I have some colleagues who say this, they say, man, I just hear all that, and I just, my mind goes blank because I hear it so much, I'm tired of it, let's move on. But if that's your mindset, you need to understand that the US government has let criminals go free, Epstein at first, and then others still now, because, and argument right now is for why they can't release these files, is there are people in there who were associated with Jeffrey Epstein who shouldn't have to be embarrassed by being in a release of information. The problem is, within that list of people that they think shouldn't be embarrassed are actual criminals who should be prosecuted. And so one of the objections to releasing all this material, once you get past the fact that we are gonna protect the victims, one of the objections is this embarrassment thing, but we gotta get over that. We gotta get all this out there and let people sort through, okay, this guy knew Jeffrey Epstein because he funded the scholarship that Epstein gave, right? Whereas this guy was a sexual predator. And I think that we can get to the bottom of that. Speaker 0: Thank you Congressman for your time today. Thank Thank James. What is your price? Because if your price is not your life, then you are for sale.
Rep. Thomas Massie | My Price Is My Life With James O’Keefe #11 - O'Keefe Media Group Congressman Thomas Massie stood with Jeffrey Epstein survivors at a historic press conference on Capitol Hill, demanding the full release of the Epstein Files. Those demands were echoed by allies from both parties. According to Massie, Speaker Mike Johnson is pushing a placebo resolution, billionaires are spending millions to crush him, and congress members whisper […] okeefemediagroup.com
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RepThomasMassie
Posted - September 3, 2025 at 1:43 AM
Saved - September 3, 2025 at 2:16 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

In just 2 hours, our discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files garnered 134 signers. We are over halfway to 218. Thank you to @RepBoebert, @RepMTG, and @RepNancyMace for signing the petition and standing up for the victims. Where are the men?

RepThomasMassie
Posted - September 2, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Saved - September 3, 2025 at 12:52 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

👀

@tsidpod - Dan Smotz (The System is Down)

Thomas Massie's America First Tomorrow. 09.03.25 #MassieAF🇺🇸 https://t.co/8IEqnY5C3U

Video Transcript AI Summary
Can we be honest with the American people about what's going on here? This is political theater. No. I don't think Thomas Massey understands government. I think he's a grandstander, frankly. The president's consultants have spent $1,800,000 against me. What he promised us was we would put America first. Most democrats are just fine with this kind of totalitarian state that the bureaucrats are pushing on us. But republicans at least pretend to be against these things. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This is not going away. How many agents or assets of the federal government were present on January 6? We are going to the cathedral. The American public isn't buying it. We're knocking out bump stocks. What he's showing us here is not a bump stock. And I would hope that we've learned something from the COVID experience.
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Speaker 0: Can we be honest with the American people about what's going on here? This is political theater. No. I don't think Thomas Massey understands government. I think he's a grandstander, frankly. The president's consultants have spent $1,800,000 against me. What he promised us was we would put America first. Most democrats are just fine with this kind of totalitarian state that the bureaucrats are pushing on us. But republicans at least pretend to be against these things. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This is not going away. How many agents or assets of the federal government were present on January 6? We are going to the cathedral. The American public isn't buying it. We're knocking out bump stocks. What he's showing us here is not a bump stock. And I would hope that we've learned something from the COVID experience. Some of our science projects aren't the best ideas. I recommend take the vaccines. I did it. It's good. If you look at my colleagues' feeds now, there's they all look the same. Everybody but me has an APAC person. It sets up a fake fight that we all know here is fake. The compromise has already been reached in a smoke filled back room here. You don't have anything over on me. Like, you could literally take everything I've got and I can create it again. I refuse to be a thespian in this failure theater.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - September 2, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Saved - September 2, 2025 at 11:14 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

.@SpeakerJohnson just scheduled this meaningless vote to provide political cover for those members who don’t support our bipartisan legislation to force the release of the Epstein files.

@MZanona - Melanie Zanona

The House just added a bill to floor sked this week that would direct the House Oversight Committee to "continue its ongoing investigation” into Epstein. Comes as GOP leaders are trying to stave off a discharge petition forcing the release of all the Epstein files. https://t.co/V200JVquOq

RepThomasMassie
Posted - August 21, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Saved - August 21, 2025 at 5:52 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

The system’s relentless efforts to destroy me are already beginning to backfire.

@TCNetwork - Tucker Carlson Network

Tucker Addresses the System's Relentless Efforts to Destroy Thomas Massie and MTG https://t.co/jNDsPBsp4v

Video Transcript AI Summary
Two speakers discuss suppression of dissent and power culture: "If you see or hear voices that are dissenting from the official storyline, they're gonna have to be silenced or eliminated, I mean." They note attacks on Thomas Massie. "Marjorie Taylor Greene is nowhere near as stupid. I mean." They praise Massey: "If you think Thomas Massey is the problem You are the problem." "He's the only one without a handler." They contrast dissent in DC with authoritarian states, noting "more dissent is allowed in Abu Dhabi than in DC." They discuss universities, criticizing Harvard leadership as rot; DEI debates follow, including debates over sports and hiring. They argue for merit over DEI quotas, citing their own experience hiring top people. The speaker urges Cornell to form an "elite committee of people I absolutely trusted" to decide twenty-year directions: "because we can't be here in twenty years."
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Speaker 0: If you see or hear voices that are dissenting from the official storyline, they're gonna have to be silenced or eliminated, I mean. Speaker 1: Well, look at what happened. Look at the ambushes that occurred when Thomas Massie, who I think is great, Rand Paul, who I think has matured immensely, and who is the third Republican who who stepped away from the narrative, and all of a sudden the attacks were relentless. Now that could just be Trump being Trump. Speaker 0: It wasn't just Trump attacking them, though. Speaker 1: I know. Marjorie Taylor. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, by the way, is nowhere near as stupid. I mean, she's not even stupid. Speaker 0: Oh, I know. Speaker 1: She ran a construction company. Speaker 0: Oh, I know. And her She just doesn't have whatever that normal The fear that controls people in DC where like, I can't Speaker 1: But how do you turn on Thomas Massey? Marjorie Taylor Greene at least played a role in drawing fire. Massey's this guy, you know, who who built his own house and fixes his own car, and he's he's an engineer. He's he's he's 's he he's archetype of who we ought to be. Speaker 0: As a country. Speaker 1: As a country. I so vehemently agree with turned on him. Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, I haven't. Speaker 1: We know why they turned on him. Speaker 0: Texted with him this morning. No. I mean, you know, you could say I disagree with Thomas Massey, but if you think Thomas Massey is the problem You are the problem. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. Just because, first of all, he's a decent man, which always matters to me, I think it should matter to all of us. You could, you know, give Thomas Massey a routing number, and he's not going to take a dollar. He's just not. He's not going to Speaker 1: He's the only one without a handler. Speaker 0: That's true. And I think we should admire that even if you think that all members of congress should be required to have handlers. It's okay to live in a world where one doesn't. That's what I find so Speaker 1: Right. It's not okay to live in a world where everyone else does. Speaker 0: No. I agree with you, but I just find what's so interesting, and there's religious quality to all of these conversations that I find so striking. It's like, it's okay if you have, you know, all this power, all this money, if you run the US government, or whoever you are with a lot of power, you know, you can afford to have some percentage of the population not play along. Like, you don't need it doesn't need to be an Albanian election in 1982. Like, you can have some dissent. Speaker 1: Unless you're an authoritarian state. Speaker 0: I guess that's right. I mean, but even in an effective authoritarian state, in Saudi Arabia, in The Emirates, these are, you know, basically, theocracies. They don't they don't agree with that, but they you know, these are Islamic states under Sharia law. You can kinda dissent. It's okay. You just can't do anything really threatening, of course. Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 0: But more dissent is allowed in Abu Dhabi than in DC. Just find that just absolutely incredible. Like, what is this? Why why can't they allow Thomas Massey to just, like, have his own Massey views? Speaker 1: He has a vote. Speaker 0: He's a vote. Okay. But you could you got hundreds of others. Like, I I just think it's weird. There's this desire to make sure that nobody sings off the song sheet, like, and that person must be killed. And I wow. I just I don't enforce that among my own children. So Do you know what I'm talking about? Speaker 1: No. I absolutely Speaker 0: know what we're talking about. Speaker 1: We used to allow opposing views. Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, look. If someone is really a threat to the system well, I think that should be allowed personally because the people only Speaker 1: Depends on what way, but yes. Speaker 0: In what way? I have a very wide strike zone Speaker 1: for that. Speaker 0: But I get it if the system is like, I'm sorry. You're an actual threat. We have to kill you. Okay. Systems exist to preserve themselves. I understand that. What I really can't even comprehend is someone out there in a place I've never been and never will go among 350,000,000 people is making a noise that I disagree with. I must crush him. What is that? That's just weird to me. Why are you going to the effort to shut down all dissent? I I don't know. But But it's that's that's That's what's happening. Oh, I know. Not Speaker 1: to swing the topic yet again, let me let me get back to the universities. People don't understand universities. There are people who do, obviously, but the average person doesn't. So so people are gonna say I'm talking my book. Let me let me take this opportunity with your gargantuan following to explain how universities work Speaker 0: so that Well, let me just say before you begin that I'm amazed by the broadness of your thinking. Right or wrong, you're certainly thinking thoughts that most people don't allow themselves to think, and you are a tenured professor at an Ivy League college, and you still have your job apparently. So that does say something. Speaker 1: It would be hard to fire me. Speaker 0: Apparently. I mean, part of part of Speaker 1: the problem Speaker 0: is one of reasons I Speaker 1: got canceled is because I twice fought unionizations. Yeah. And the first time was at the request of the dean of faculty. Second time was at the request of the provost of late night phone call. You gotta fight this. Got You to put together a team, and that's the now president. And so if they fired me, that group was sort of behind my cancellation, so firing me would have been hard because, you know, you know, witness number one would be, did you ask column to to fight the unions, and did that lead to, you know, them canceling him and stuff like that? I really think Cornell is great. I think most universities are fine. We needed a fastball past our chin. Great example, Claudine Gay. Shouldn't be president of Harvard, shouldn't be on the faculty, shouldn't have a PhD in my opinion. That is the sign of the rot that has gotten into the universities, but then it's still an exceptional rot. So I don't see people at Cornell that look like Claudine Gay to me. And and if you actually look in the the whole DEI thing, you say, well, universities are super duper DEI, I go, you guys are forgetting that a year ago or two years ago, if you weren't DEI, you got destroyed. The whole system was geared up to make sure you paid dearly if you weren't DEI, so you had to have your deans of diversity and your you you the the the world was demanding don't forget this was a world where where where biological men were were competing in women's sports. They still kind of are, but at least it's now starting to dissipate. And that was considered totally normal and was considered rational. And if you fought it, you get fired and things like that. So so the universities were simply responding. Now they've gotten way left wing. My colleagues were all hired, all hired based on their skills. Guaranteed. I would I'd remember a case if it was a DEI hire. I remember a case because I would have fought it. I would have screamed. I don't shut up on things like that. We try to find the best person in the world to hire, and we go for that person if we can, and we do pretty well. And so if you were on a campus, you wouldn't see what we're hearing about. I don't think. You'd walk around the campus, you go, everything just looks pretty normal. Speaker 0: As in the hardest of the hard sciences though, do you think that Speaker 1: That's the problem. If I walked over the art squad, I'd see some Looney Tunes. Right? And we're we're now the cost of an education is too high to waste it. And so if you're gonna spend $300,000, you can't you can't go into a career that you make 40,000 or that you make 25 because you're a barista. Speaker 0: Yeah. Speaker 1: Right? It's just no longer even viable, so you have to. So colleges if I were president of Cornell, I put together an elite committee of people I absolutely trusted and say, you guys are in charge of trying to figure out where we should be in twenty years and how to get there because because we can't be here in twenty years.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - August 14, 2025 at 11:44 PM
Saved - August 15, 2025 at 8:41 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Thank you @RepMTG. We should quit funding wars abroad. Instead we should focus on the well being of Americans and the fiscal stability of our own country.

@RepMTG - Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸

Senator Graham confidently says the quiet part out loud, “If Israel wanted to commit genocide they could. They have the capacity to do that.” That is quite a statement and is an acknowledgment that nuclear armed Israel is more than capable of defending themselves, by themselves, and not only defeating their enemies, but completely wiping them out! So why is America funding them and fighting for them??!!! We should not be!! And it is not a matter of supporting either Israel or Hamas, as he suggest, which is ridiculous. It is about supporting AMERICA!!! Lindsey Graham has no children. I have 3 adult children, who are 22, 25, and 27, which gives me a fierce invested interest to be ALL IN to save America. And we are now a nation in $37 TRILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT because of the NON-STOP votes and funding for foreign countries and foreign wars and bloated budgets and pork and waste for over 30 years, which is how long Lindsey Graham has been serving in Washington DC. And the gross negligent consequences of America LAST decisions by MOST politicians in Washington DC has not only chained all of us and our future generations in debt, but eroded the value of our dollar, driven out of control inflation making life completely unaffordable, and is destroying the middle class and turning my children’s generation into the WORKING POOR!!! WHICH PISSES ME OFF!!! The sirens should be blaring in Washington DC with an all hands on deck panic mentality that every single elected member of congress and senator should be working as hard as possible to prevent our inevitable demise. But instead, even after the America First mandate was delivered in the election of 2024, tone deaf Politicians in the swamp still slither up to podiums to deliver speeches that sound like the same Bush era propaganda that has led to 22 veteran suicides a day, every day, from devastating PTSD brought home from pointless foreign wars. I am also completely amazed that Israel and their aligned groups like AIPAC (who is breaking the law by not registering under FARA) takes Members of Congress, and Conservative social media influencers (like TPUSA) on all expenses paid trips to Israel, and welcomes a steady stream of conservative media outlets in order to keep the funding stream going. Can you imagine if Russia did this??? All hell broke loose when Tucker Carlson dared to show clean subways and well stocked grocery stores in Moscow! We can support our allies, but our elected officials should not be funded or going on funded trips for the interest of foreign countries. And God will not pull the plug on us, if we stop funding the secular government of Israel. This is 1,000% false and is the fear mongering tactic used on good hearted American Christians to force us to fund and fight the secular government of nuclear armed Israel’s wars. We don’t believe we go to heaven based on how much money we blindly give and how many bombs we drop on the secular government of Israel’s enemies. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 Jesus was extremely clear about how we should treat others, especially children. Funding and blindly supporting an ally who is starving children is not going to bring God’s favor on America, as a matter of fact, I’ll argue it will instead bring God’s wrath. America’s intervention should be to stop the war and work for peace and demand the release of the poor Oct 7th hostages, while equally demanding to stop the genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Lastly, American’s hard earned tax dollars should go to AMERICA ONLY!!! If we are going to pull the plug on anything, we should pull the damn plug on FUNDING FOREIGN WARS AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES!!!!!!!

@LindseyGrahamSC - Lindsey Graham

If America pulls the plug on Israel, God will pull the plug on us. I’m not going to let that happen.

Video Transcript AI Summary
"Israel is in a fight for their lives." "I am tired of the word genocide." "If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they could. They have the capability to do that. They choose not to." "Hamas, they would commit genocide in thirty seconds. They just can't." "Israel is our friend. They're the most reliable friend we have in the Mideast." "A word of warning, if America pulls the plug on Israel, God will pull the plug on us." "October 7 was an effort to destroy the state of Israel, the largest loss of Jewish life since the holocaust, and here we are almost two years later and Israel's the bad guy." "Israel's the bad guy." "The bad guys are the radical Islamists who would kill everybody in this room if they could."
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Speaker 0: But tonight, it's late at night, Israel is in a fight for their lives. Our friends in Israel are surrounded by people who would kill them all if they could. I am tired of the word genocide. Let me tell you about genocide. If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they could. They have the capability to do that. They choose not to. Hamas, they would commit genocide in thirty seconds. They just can't. And that's the big difference, folks. To people in my party, I'm tired of this crap. Israel is our friend. They're the most reliable friend we have in the Mideast. They're a democracy surrounded by people who would cut their throats if they could. This is not a hard choice if you're an American. It's not a hard choice if you're a Christian. A word of warning, if America pulls the plug on Israel, God will pull the plug on us. And we're not gonna let that happen. So I just wanna end with this thought that president Trump has stood with Israel at the most difficult time since his founding. October 7 was an effort to destroy the state of Israel, the largest loss of Jewish life since the holocaust, and here we are almost two years later and Israel's the bad guy. That's ridiculous. Israel is not the bad guy. They're the good guy. The bad guys are the radical Islamists who would kill everybody in this room if they could. So I haven't lost my vision of right and wrong. When it comes to foreign policy, president Trump has stood up for all the right things, and he stood up against wrong things just like Reagan.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - August 14, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Saved - August 14, 2025 at 10:04 AM
reSee.it AI Summary
Rep. Thomas Massie expressed concern over Congress funding USAID, noting that every continuing resolution (CR) includes this funding. He highlighted that he was the only House Republican to vote against the CR containing USAID funding in March and plans to do so again in September. In response, another user referenced a previous discussion, prompting Massie to recall the silence in the Rules Committee when he spoke out about the issue, indicating he does not need to prepare new remarks for the upcoming discussions.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Many conservatives are rightfully upset that Congress has been funding USAID. Every CR we pass has the funding for USAID within it. In March, I was the only House Republican to vote against the CR which contained the funding for USAID. I will also vote against the CR in Sept.

@Chesschick01 - Natalie F Danelishen

@RepThomasMassie It’s always the same script: https://t.co/c09UTZ6g7q

Video Transcript AI Summary
"This is political theater. I'm gonna call out both sides right here. It's all posturing. It's fake fighting." "We all know where it ends up. This is Groundhog Day." "We always get a c r in September, and then we get an omnibus." "We might get the omnibus before Christmas, but if we're not good, it comes after Christmas." "We should have done 12 separate bills." "But, again, whether Democrats are in control or Republicans are in control, we never do the 12 separate bills." "It's because Democrats wanna grow the welfare state, and republicans wanna grow the military industrial complex." "I guarantee it."
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Speaker 0: Can we be honest with the American people about what's going on here? This is political theater. I'm gonna call out both sides right here. It's all posturing. It's fake fighting. We all know where it ends up. This is Groundhog Day. I don't care if the democrat is the speaker or republican is the speaker. We always get a c r in September, and then we get an omnibus. Sometimes there's a twist on that. We might get the omnibus before Christmas, but if we're not good, it comes after Christmas. But that's what's going to happen. And in the meantime, it's political theater. You know, we've got some it's good theater. We've got great writers. I wish they just come up with a new plot. It's the same plot every fiscal year. What should we be doing? It's already been discussed. We should have done 12 separate bills. We should have done 12 separate bills. But, again, whether Democrats are in control or Republicans are in control, we never do the 12 separate bills. What did what why do we always spend at least as much as we did last year, and why do we never cut spending? It's because Democrats wanna grow the welfare state, and republicans wanna grow the military industrial complex. And we're we're eventually gonna get together, and they're both gonna go up. I guarantee it.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

@Chesschick01 I remember this. You could have heard a pin drop in the Rules Committee when I started speaking the truth. I don’t even need to make a new speech for this year. 😢

RepThomasMassie
Posted - August 14, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Saved - August 14, 2025 at 3:46 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Why is Trump sending troops to DC to fight crime during the recess? All the criminals went home to their districts. #sassywithmassie

RepThomasMassie
Posted - August 8, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Saved - August 9, 2025 at 3:04 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

The Epstein files are not a hoax. The Speaker adjourned Congress early to avoid the topic, but we will not forget. When the House returns from August recess, I can begin collecting the 218 signatures required to force a vote on binding legislation to release the files. https://t.co/URyw62mpBK

RepThomasMassie
Posted - August 2, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Saved - August 2, 2025 at 11:52 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

I asked grok to “write a scathing but accurate essay about whomever the anti-Massie superPAC donors are able to recruit to run against him.” How well do you think grok did? https://t.co/Bq7uK3PJXb

RepThomasMassie
Posted - August 1, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Saved - August 2, 2025 at 9:04 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Can we stop funding it?

@JDVance - JD Vance

https://t.co/6kOOlGqwLN

RepThomasMassie
Posted - August 1, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Saved - August 1, 2025 at 7:34 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Three billionaires from New York City and Las Vegas have funded a superPAC deceptively named Kentucky MAGA to run millions of dollars of negative ads against me because I vote against foreign aid for Israel and needless wars in the Middle East. Kentuckians aren’t falling for it.

@ggreenwald - Glenn Greenwald

What a shock. The huge amounts of money being poured into the Super PAC to remove @RepThomasMassie from Congress are all coming from the big GOP donors for whom Israel is a top cause: Miriam Adelson, John Paulson, Paul Singer.

@JakeSherman - Jake Sherman

there's the funders of the anti Massie super PAC. Miriam Adelson's PAC, John Paulson and Paul Singer.

RepThomasMassie
Posted - July 30, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Saved - July 30, 2025 at 7:48 PM
reSee.it AI Summary
Rep. Thomas Massie refuted claims made by Speaker Johnson regarding a discharge petition aimed at releasing Epstein files. Massie asserted that the petition includes protections for victims, correctly identifies federal statutes on CSAM, and does not require the DOJ to release grand jury testimony. He criticized Johnson's competing resolution as non-binding and protective of the elite, arguing it contains loopholes that could suppress whistleblower documents. Massie concluded that his legislation is legally binding and effectively safeguards victims.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

.@SpeakerJohnson is making false claims about my discharge petition that seeks to force a House vote on full release of the Epstein files. Let's set the record straight with this thread...🧵 https://t.co/qqxm1oFNco

Video Transcript AI Summary
The Massey and Kana discharge petition lacks adequate protections. It cites the wrong federal code provision regarding child and sex abuse information, making it unworkable. It also requires the DOJ to release grand jury testimony, which is prohibited by law. House Republicans on the Rules Committee have a well-drafted resolution, created by lawyers, that would be workable. This approach is necessary to protect the innocent. While the resolution aims to redact victims' names, the language may not adequately do so.
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Speaker 0: The the Massey and the the Kana discharge petition does not have adequate protections. For example, in the way that it was drafted, they cite that they don't want child abuse, sex abuse information uncovered, but they cite the wrong provision of the federal code, and so it makes it unworkable. It it it requires the DOJ to release grand jury testimony. They are prohibited by law from doing so. So it is not the right approach. There is another approach out there. The house republicans on the rules committee have a resolution that is well drafted, that is thoughtfully drafted by lawyers that would make this workable. That's the approach we have to protect the innocent. We'll do it at all cost. They they do say that they want victims names redacted, though, just to be clear. Let me move on to Ghislain Maxwell. But but but their language doesn't adequately predict produce produce that. Yes. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah. Let me move.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Claim: “The Massie and the Khanna discharge petition does not have adequate protections [for victims].” Verdict: FALSE - Section 1(A) of Permitted Withholdings provides explicit protections for victims. https://t.co/DxvgCXhAkk

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Claim: “In the way it was drafted, they cite they don’t want [CSAM] uncovered, but they cite the wrong provision of the federal code…” Verdict: FALSE - the bill correctly identifies the primary, controlling federal statutes governing CSAM (18 USC § 2256, 18 USC § 2252-2252(A)). https://t.co/i65XlPvzPu

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Claim: “[the bill] requires the DOJ to release grand jury testimony. They are prohibited by law from doing so." Verdict: FALSE - the bill does not require DOJ to release grand jury testimony, nor does it attempt to override Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e).

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Claim: Mike Johnson purports he will protect the innocent “at all costs.” Verdict: FALSE - Mike Johnson sent Congress home early to avoid a vote in the House to release the files. https://t.co/qJnkakkClX

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Claim: Johnson has a competing resolution that is “well drafted, thoughtfully drafted” to deliver transparency and accountability. Verdict: FALSE - the competing legislation (H.Res.589) is non-binding. It has no force of law, meaning it cannot require any release of any files.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

What is true - My legislation: 1. Protects victims. 2. Blocks release of CSAM. 3. Requires the DOJ to release investigative materials rather than ask a judge to unseal grand jury records.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

(cont.) 4. Does not interfere with ongoing prosecutions or investigations BUT requires the release of covered documents once prosecutions and investigations are complete. 5. Prohibits any document from being withheld on the basis of embarrassment to any government official.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

In contrast -@SpeakerJohnson's legislation includes highly problematic language designed to protect the rich and elite (see H.RES.589, section 1(c)(G)) over the victims of sex trafficking. His language blocks release of any file deemed "demonstrably false or unauthenticated."

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

This language enables the government to suppress whistleblower documents, leaked materials, and non-government records, giving federal agencies the authority to block information that contradicts the official narrative. It’s an attempt to shield the powerful from accountability.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Who determines what is “false”? Is a statement deemed false if it contradicts a government narrative? What if it is disputed but not disproven?

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

The government could label whistleblower documents, leaked materials, or non-government records as “unauthenticated” to suppress them simply because they lack official verification.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Conclusion: Our legislation is well drafted, legally binding, and protects victims. The Speaker’s placebo resolution is not legally binding and includes intentional loopholes to prevent the files from being released. End 🧵.

RepThomasMassie
Posted - July 23, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Saved - July 24, 2025 at 12:10 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

ICYMI: Yesterday I joined @SchmittNYC on @NEWSMAX's "Rob Schmitt Tonight" to discuss the Epstein files. The American people voted for transparency so I’m forcing a vote to release the Epstein files. https://t.co/858iDgIzDg

RepThomasMassie
Posted - July 16, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Saved - July 16, 2025 at 4:58 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Americans deserve transparency and the victims of Epstein (and his associates) deserve justice. Thank you @RepBoebert for cosponsoring this legislation to release the Epstein files.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

We all deserve to know what’s in the Epstein files, who’s implicated, and how deep this corruption goes. Americans were promised justice and transparency. We’re introducing a discharge petition to force a vote in the US House of Representatives on releasing the COMPLETE files. https://t.co/Ja1xJ7Hiz1

RepThomasMassie
Posted - July 11, 2025 at 6:16 AM
Saved - July 11, 2025 at 6:40 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Dr. Kirk Moore should NOT be prosecuted for helping people avoid the tyrannical vax mandates, which were based on a corrupted FDA approval process. I deposed the two high level FDA reviewers who quit (and their corrupt boss) when Biden admin told to modify the approval process.

@RepMTG - Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸

I am writing a letter to the DOJ asking all charges be dropped against Dr. Kirk Moore. who is facing thirty five years in federal prison for destroying thousands of vials of COVID-19 vaccine, giving his patients vaccine cards without taking the shots, and injecting saline into children whose parents wanted them to believe they got vaccinated without risking the deadly side effects. This man is a hero, not a criminal. The charges were filed under Biden’s DOJ, not Trump. The Covid vaccine kills and injures people, but this brave doctor, who is a veteran by the way, is being prosecuted for helping people avoid tyrannical vaccine mandates under Democrats. Big Pharma was given billions of taxpayer’s dollars for experimental covid vaccines and then the MrNA covid vaccines were forced on Americans, our military, and our children against their will. Covid vaccines do not stop the spread of covid and are proven to cause life threatening myocarditis, miscarriages, strokes, blood clots, and many other issues that many Americans are angrily still dealing with today. There are millions of reports on the VAERS system of deaths and vaccine injuries for the COVID vaccine that still have never been investigated. Dr. Kirk Moore is a hero, not a criminal!!!

RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 30, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Saved - July 1, 2025 at 3:28 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Is this a temporary amnesty? How would this deter illegal immigration? Would the $100+ billion of immigration money in the BBB pay for this administration’s new exemption program for illegals?

@MariaBartiromo - Maria Bartiromo

Big news on the border from my interview @realDonaldTrump is working on a "temporary pass" for workers on farms and in hotels where they pay taxes but it's up to the farmer for a temporary pass even if they came into the country "incorrectly"

RepThomasMassie
Posted - July 1, 2025 at 12:44 AM
Saved - July 1, 2025 at 3:17 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Thank you Ron Paul for amplifying the truth and defending freedom, as always.

@RonPaul - Ron Paul

As was easily predictable, all the carrots they hung on the "Big Beautiful Bill" to get House Republicans to vote on it have been stripped from the Senate version. The only thing remaining is the massive increase in debt. As usual, Thomas Massie was right. Will the final vote saddle Americans with this bankrupt albatross? Watch @RonPaul & @DanielLMcAdams below:

Video Transcript AI Summary
The speakers discuss the latest spending bill, criticizing the Republican-controlled House and Senate for increasing spending despite promises of cuts. They highlight that the government is quietly buying its own debt, signaling underlying economic problems. They claim this is because people are not investing in long-term bonds. The speakers point out that conservative measures were removed from the bill after being used to gain initial support. They cite Thomas Massey's statements on the broken promises and Elon Musk's criticism of the bill as "political suicide" for the Republican Party. They discuss Trump's attacks on Massey for voting against the bill, including a negative ad campaign. They defend Massey as standing for the Constitution and principles. They promote an upcoming conference featuring Douglas MacGregor, who warns of potential war with Iran. They advocate for volunteerism as a core principle of liberty.
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Speaker 0: Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report. With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our cohost. Daniel, good to see you this morning. Speaker 1: Good morning, doctor Paul. It almost feels back to normal now. Yeah. We had a weird week last week, Speaker 0: didn't we? Very good. But I don't think Washington is oh, man. I was gonna say maybe Washington is not back to normal. I think they're back to normal plus. Yeah. You know? Speaker 1: Yeah. No kidding. Speaker 0: Because the normal thing in Washington is they spend more money than they have, and so they print it. So it looks like that hasn't changed. Of course, it was a big weekend for the senators. They got to stay up all night and play bridge or something, occasionally vote. But, what a what a nightmare. And, you know, how the house and the senate controlled by the Republicans, which means that, you know, things should improve. You know, we haven't and I think with the president's a Republican too. So that means we should be cutting back. So when the bill leaves the house, we were complaining a bit about the shenanigans on the house. But since it's gone went on over the senate, it's it's been increased in spending by another trillion dollars. So so that's a that's a sign that maybe we're not home yet on this spending. Matter of fact, I don't think they, even believe that it's necessary. They have to pay a little bit of lip service to it, but I don't think, a liberal socialist believe that it's possible, or sure you that you should. And maybe the chaos is a benefit because they can take over things that show when capitalism isn't working. So the so they'll blame capitalism on it. But I think there is a bankruptcy going on, and there's one other item that it was reported today that I thought was important, but they won't talk about it because it has to do with monetary policy. And this was a sponsor. This was reported by Hedge. The headline is the government is quietly buying its own debt. A silencing know something's cracking. Now why would they buy their own debt when they still have to pay interest and play the game? They're buying bonds that are longer term and higher rates and it's getting hard to renew at that rate. So they're buying them and buying short term and the tray the treasury's buying them. I think, well, the treasury has to have money. You know, Fed, we know where they get the money, but the the treasury has to get so there's always a cost, but they don't talk about that. But I think what is symbolic of is that people generally, when they worry about the economy, they don't go long on their bonds even though they might think they're gonna get higher rate. That usually drives those rates down and the and the earlier rates, you know, start to go up. But right now, they're doing it for short term gain thinking that if we can handle this refinancing by having having the shorter term. But it's again, it's a indication behind between the lines, you can say, this is this is probably the real problem. And when they're looking at how they're financing in this bill, they might say, well, this is a pretty good idea. They maybe ought to think about the real financing. Maybe they ought to think about the dollar. Maybe they even should think about the Federal Reserve, and they do. Trump has already picked his his replacement. And he's he he I'm sure he's picked somebody that is willing to print a lot of money faster Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Speaker 0: Than anybody else. Anyway, that's that's a secondary thing, but it's probably if we didn't have that type of monetary system, the this the condition of our country and our finances would have never gotten this far out of control. But it is, and it looks like it's gonna continue. But, it doesn't look like over the weekend, if if if it went up with another trillion dollars, that they're on their way to a happy landing, you know, that they soon they'll pass another bill. Who knows what's gonna happen today? They have a lot of votes, but one thing for sure is, long term, they're not gonna deal with a real problem. That is government's too big, they print too much money, and they cause the problems that they pretend they're fixing. Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, we've been talking a lot about this so called big beautiful bill. And what it is is a massive bloated omnibus bill that has everything but the kitchen sink in it. We've talked about it for a while. A few brave people on the hill have stood against it, Thomas Massey being one, senator Rand Paul being the other. And over the weekend, as you point out, the senate voted on their version of the bill. And how this works, the house because it's a money bill, the house votes first. The senate brings up their version of the bill, and then there's a reconciliation of the two bills for a final passage, which goes to the president, as you know, doctor Paul. So the senate took out their version of the bill. And as clockwork, doctor Paul, as so easily predictable, what they did is all of the carrots that the leadership put in on the Republican house on the house version of the bill to appease conservatives were ripped out by the senate. We got you. We suckered you into voting for it, and they were ripped out. Now Thomas Massey, of course, has the receipts. Put that first clip up. He points this out, and I apologize for my voice. I've had a cold over the weekend. So here's the things that were in it to appeal to the Republicans that were all taken out. Thomas Massey said, you were promised the big beautiful bill would do these things, but it does not. One, prohibit welfare for illegal aliens. Boom. Zipped out of the bill. Gone. Stop funding step changes for kids. Ripped out of the bill. End registration of suppressors. That's for guns. Ripped out of the bill. Defund plant parenting for ten years. Nope. Take it out of the bill. Implement the rains act. Nope. Take it out of the bill. Reduce the deficit. On the contrary, the senate added to the deficit as you just pointed out, doctor Paul. So you know this routine over and over again. They drizzle a little sprinkles on it to appeal to conservatives, and then they rip them away. And then once you voted for that first one, you're on the hook, baby. Speaker 0: May maybe it's just an accounting error. You know, because, if Trump knew this was going in here, do you think he could approve of this? Oh, no. He not only approved it. He probably wrote it, you know, in order to get his big bill passed. So this this is the the same old story. It's over and over again. The spending is is going to continue, but it's it's gonna be utterly amazing how they're gonna resolve this. Yeah. Maybe it'll be a thirty day continuing resolution and then fight for another day or something like that. They they've they've done that in the past too. It's just give a tenor temporary deal to it. But, you know, this this whole thing about what Thomas put up, it reminds me of how people have to to lie when they have shenanigans and especially if if if it's very important in the saying truth is treason in an empire of lies. So they they have to tell the lies. So they they do this and and then this this pacifies some people, but more and more people are disgusted. And I understand that the polls are correct. There are now a few polls that, would like to hold the Republicans' feet to the fire because they thought they were gonna get a better deal on budgeting than they've gotten so far. Speaker 1: Yeah. You make a good point. They put these in to pacify them, and then house members that go for it, they're on the hook. They're not gonna change their votes. None of them have the courage to change their votes. Hey. You voted for it already. You better vote for it again. It's gonna pass. He's gonna sign it on the July 4. It's gonna be a real firework for America. Well, I got a couple of clips of Massey and a couple of others talking about the bill. Put the next one up. This is Massey saying, lest ye blame the senate, watch the house now vote for the lobotomized version of the two point o BBB product? The initial promises got pro life, immigration reform, and pro gun groups to whip for version one point o. That's key. House Republicans got voted for version one point o, got pregnant, and will now vote for v two point o. And that's see, that's important too. That's like he knows how this works, doctor Paul. They made all these promises. They knew they were not gonna keep in the bill. They got all these groups, pro life immigration program to put to to get their people to lobby for it, lobby for it, lobby for it. They knew they were gonna take it out in the end. It's a bait and switch. Speaker 0: It it does baffle me why the people stay so gullible. You know, look how long it took people to wake up to some of the misinformation they were getting about COVID. Yeah. But but they they did eventually. It's so slow. Propaganda is powerful, and the American people would like to believe they're leaders. You know? They're they're our leaders, and you have to have organization. You can't have people, you know, disrupting things, and they're gonna ruin everything. So we have to get rid of those kind of people who who won't go along, you know, with with with the leadership. But, right now, they're fighting over who's gonna lead the charge, who's gonna spend the most money, and which way is he going. And if the argument is ongoing as we speak. Speaker 1: And and a lot of the MAGA people are saying if you don't go along with more spending, you're not America first. Speaker 0: Right? Speaker 1: Well, as usual, Thomas Massey breaks it down very, very well. If you go to that next one, very it's simple, doctor Paul. As you always say, it's really not that complicated. Here's what Massey puts up on x. There's no such thing as tax relief without spending cuts. Government can reduce the tax rate, but the spending still must be paid for. Government must borrow money, which raises interest rates and requires more taxes later, or print money, which causes inflation. Both hurt Americans. That is the perfect point, Doctor. Paul. And let's look at Senator Paul. He was on the floor of the Senate. He did his best. In the end, it was only him and Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina who immediately announced his retirement after he voted against the bill. They were the only Republicans voting against this bill very sadly. But here's what senator Paul had to say. When it comes to the not so big, not so beautiful bill, I'm asking one simple question. Will the deficit be higher or lower next year? The answer is clear, higher. That's why I'm voting no. And I urge my colleagues to ask themselves the same question before voting. Simple question. Speaker 0: You know, it's it's amazing how when they're maneuvering the people into these political votes and things, that it's it's easy for them to go along with a little bit more more spending and and and and power. They if they see that there's going to be a gain, but every once in a while, if somebody comes along and say, well, we're gonna get you and, they're they're not they're not interested in, you you know, their their their their their, platforms. I remember I got into trouble once because I voted a certain way, and this was under Reagan. And he was a good guy, and they had a good platform, but platforms never meant anything. So they were gonna censor me. And I said, well, okay. Why don't you take my votes with everybody else that's a republican and compare my votes with the with the platform and the constitution, by the way. Yeah. Well, that that's that's not that's not practical. Speaker 1: Yeah. You Speaker 0: know? That oh, you you're just a dreamer. Speaker 1: Yeah. If you follow the platform. Well, it wasn't just Massey and Rand who got involved with the debate. Coming out of a slumber of a couple weeks, understandably, he's been keeping a low profile, but Elon Musk has come out again, making his position known on this bill. Now put that next one up. This is Elon on the twenty eighth. He put out a post on X saying, the polls show that this bill is political suicide for the Republican Party. And if you go to that next one and amplify it, it's gonna be hard to see. But the first one, Elon this is a poll they took, the, you know, Terence Group. Elon Musk claims that this legislation is an outrageous pork filled spending bill that will massively increase the budget deficit and burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt. Yes. Do you agree? Green, you're unsure. Blue, you disagree. Look at those yeses. All voters, 58%. The hard GOP, 53%. Medium GOP, 59%. The toss-up, 61%. So even the hardcore Republican voters in the majority say this bill is an absolute fiscal nightmare, and they're on the side of people like Elon and Massey against Trump on this. Speaker 0: And it doesn't look like there's anything that put the brakes on it. You know, the monetary system was supposed to do this, that if if you have fiat money, if you give the privilege of creating money, you know, either to the congress or some secret organization like the Federal Reserve Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 0: It becomes it becomes the engine of big government, and it becomes the engine of, you know, big militarism and welfarism, and it goes on and on. And that's where we are, and and they're not gonna voluntarily quit. Matter of fact, the pain of quitting is very great, and nobody wants to do that. It's like a cancer operation, and nobody nobody likes to have the operation. They'd rather, you know, you you know, continue with with no treatment or whatever. They let it go with a path, but they they will not they will not cut. It's it it it you can see what happens. You know, they end up with two people willing to look at it in an honest way and, see if their constituents will stand stand with them. And you know what? I think the constituents stand with people who stand on principle a lot better than they dream. I think I think that's hypocrisy. Sometimes, it was, oh, I can't do it. My people don't want me to do that. But the people who do it, so that's why we better all be rooting for Thomas. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Here's a couple more of Elon's things over the weekend if you put that next one up. Now he retweeted reposted this comment. This is interesting because if you go to that next clip, he reposted this. It says, wow. The, if you can put that next clip on here. He says, wow. The trade union that represents America's 3,000,000 construction workers just said that the senate's big bill would be, quote, the biggest job killing bill in our country's history. They think it threatens up to 1,750,000 construction jobs. Then Elon, if you go to the next one, reposted Massey saying BBB. Well, that'll be our credit rating if the bill becomes law. And then the final one, this is I think is an important post that Massey or that Elon Musk put out on the twenty eighth. He said, to that next one if you can, please. I know you're running around like a madman back there. The latest senate draft bill, this is before it passed on Saturday. The latest senate draft pill bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country, utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future. Now when I heard that over the weekend, I was driving to my car, doctor Paul, and someone was reading it on their show. I immediately thought of you because what you've always said, it's not the government's role to pick winners and losers. And that's what the bill does. They believe they're gonna subsidize this, and Elon says that's not the future. That's the past. Speaker 0: And sometimes they start very early when decided, we want you to be the winner here and this guy. We we don't like him. We'll make him a loser. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 0: But, no. It's a bad system of government. Do you have another thing on the on the budget? Speaker 1: No. I was gonna move on to Massey if you're ready to. Speaker 0: Yeah. Let let's do that. Speaker 1: Because, you know, this is something that, is quite disturbing. Now Trump announced I'll put on the next next clip. I'm not gonna read the whole thing. But, you know, unfortunately, this is becoming classic Trump. He goes in and he writes a massive I don't even know how you describe it. Rage filled post on his truth social. And it just happens to be whoever he's mad at at the time. And this one happened to be Thomas Massey. Thomas Massey of Kentucky is not MAGA, even though he likes to say he is. Actually, MAGA doesn't want him, doesn't know him, doesn't respect him. He's a negative force who always votes no no matter how good something may be. He's a simple minded grandstander who thinks it's good politics for Iran to have the highest level nuclear weapon. That's insane. While at the same time yelling death to America. And I can go on and on and on. But here's what he did. He announced that he's gonna spend a million dollars. His group's gonna spend a million dollars running ads, negative ads against Massey in Massey's district, to unseat Thomas Massey. Now the first ad dropped on the anniversary of Thomas Massey's wife's death, which is disgusting. And let's watch how disingenuous this ad is, how disgusting this ad is. If we could put that video clip on, you might wanna grab your earpiece if you can, doctor Paul. Let's listen to what they said about the Thomas Massey that we know so well. Speaker 2: What happened to Thomas Massey? President Trump is banning sex changes on minors. Massey voted against it. President Trump is cutting taxes and saving Kentucky families 10,000. Massey voted against it. President Trump is securing our border and deporting criminal aliens. Massey voted against Trump again. And after Trump obliterated Iran's nuclear weapons program, Massey sided with Democrats and the Ayatollah. Let's fire Thomas Massey. MAGA Kentucky is responsible for the content of this advertising. Speaker 1: And, of course, everything in there is wrong because they took out the the the measure that was banning sex changes for kids. They took out the measure that was reducing tax. They took out all these measures, and they still put out this attack ad against Thomas Massey. You know? Really awful. Really awful stuff. Speaker 0: Yeah. You'd you'd you'd think they'd have a little more finesse about this. How crude can they get? Speaker 1: Did you see that when they said, about the sex change thing? They had a clip of of Massey with his eyes open like he was prurient. You know? He was sort of a pervert. They had that weird expression on his face. That's really a low blow. That's not that's really bad. That's really not Speaker 0: It's pretty bad. So that's why it's very important that people like this are are rewarded by people standing behind them. Because, you know, if it were strictly honesty and positions and you put it up one list on one side and the other list on what really was the truth about what they're doing, But that won't be the case. The demagogues will be there, and a lot of them will be, you know, welcome to be an a victim of a demagogue because, you know, this I that's where we get our check, you know Yeah. You know, And they rationalize it. That's why I've been a pessimist on believing that this is gonna change gradually even though I work for the gradual change. But I think the the change will come, But it's when the whole thing falls apart and when when you start seeing, like, the rockiness that is entering the bond market right now and the deficit and then this Mickey Mouse stuff about balancing and cutting back on this revolutionary administration, and and they say, oh, well, we have a weekend to tinker up a little bit. The senate's gonna improve your bill. Oh, another trillion dollars. That's nothing. We can we can we can afford that. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 0: And, I mean, they're not even in the real world. Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I know. It's, it's crazy. Now now I feel I'm I feel pretty confident that Massey will be able to withstand this primary challenge that they're trying to run against him. He had 70, almost 76 of the vote last time he had a primary challenger, that was also funded by APAC partially, and I'm sure they'll put in a lot of money as well. I feel confident, but I I will say that when I look on a thread on x and Massey's name is in the main post or it's about Massey, I'm seeing a lot more very, very nasty posts about him. So that shows you the power of propaganda. They're saying things about Massey, the same kinds of things they said about you when you were in the house. Well, which is a record of achievement? How many bills has he had passed? As if that's the measure of achievement. But we both looked at this article in the hill of all places, praising Thomas Massey. And I wanted to read a couple, if you'll indulge me, doctor Paul, a couple of, quotes from this. This is an incredible, incredible article. Can Thomas Massey survive Trump's swamp machine? Now if you go to the next one, I'm just gonna read a couple of these quickly. And I'm again, sorry. Bear with me for my voice. The knives are out for representative Thomas Massey. Trump's $500,000,000 political machine has Kentucky's Fourth District in its crosshairs, And the establishment media is already writing the congressman's obituary, but they're missing the real story here. This isn't about one maverick politician bucking the system. This is about the soul of the Republican Party and whether it still has one. Go to the next one, Massey. Stands alone. While his colleagues genuflect before Trump's truth social tantrums, Massey asked the hard questions. When the president bypasses congress to strike Iran, Massey calls it unconstitutional. When Trump demands Republicans rubber stamp another bloated spending bill, Massey votes no. When the party leadership demands lockstep loyalty, Massey chooses principle. For this, he's branded a grandstander and little boy by a man who turned the presidency into performance art. Now I'm gonna I don't wanna belabor this. I just wanna skip to the one if Massey fails because this is a very powerful go forward a couple, one more. And this is poignant, doctor Paul, I sent this to you over the weekend. If Massey fails, if Massey falls, the Republican Party won't just lose a congressional seat. It will forfeit the last trace of the ideals it once pretended to believe in. Who will vote against the next trillion dollar spending spree? Who will stand up to the next foreign war fever dream? Who will remind the executive branch, Republican or Democrat, that it is not above the law? That is a a great little paragraph there. And I would just urge people who are in this cult who are being brainwashed, take a step back, take a deep breath, think about this. Do you really want to be attacking the person who stands for the constitution? You can like president Trump. You can hope president Trump does the right thing. You can support president Trump. Why on earth would you kick a man for supporting the constitution? Speaker 0: And some people will throw up their, so what? You know? So what? It's they they themselves, you know, are in disagreement with somebody voting the constitution. I mean, there's a lot of people in Washington that not only do they not understand the constitution, but when they do understand it, they're against it, you know, because it limits their power. See, power overwhelms and and money overwhelms. And, therefore, the principle of personal liberty and personal freedom and, you know, privacy, just think of how the privacy issue is being just torn apart that, things that, would have been unheard of. Course, it's been going on for a while. You know? It probably started with all our wars. You know? There's always been, you know, whittled away. But but right right now, you know, they're very, very active in making sure that you're discredited in all this stuff that what what we do is we suck these people in at universities and finance people, then we use that as a justification. Well, it's our money. We have to regulate. We can't let them pay say this and demonstrate. Well, you're absolutely right. We shouldn't be doing it, but stop the money. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 0: And then you then you, then it'd be up to the the people who who runs the university, and nobody has to interfere with them. But, no, we give them the money, then they start lobbying, you know, against the people who, disagree with them. And so they say, well, we use it as a weapon. And and, you know, a foreign policy is put on sanctions. You know, we take care of you, and we're gonna we're gonna be nice to you, and we're gonna be your friend and and and this sort of thing. And they say, well, yeah. And if you don't do it, we're gonna put sanctions on you, and this will close you out of the marketplace. So it's it's a kinda and that that is all the use of force, And, it's very disturbing because it's the opposite of what we're supposed to be, you know, really promoting. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Well, you know, as a five zero one c three nonprofit, we're very limited in the politics we can be involved in. But if you do wanna fight back, you need to support Thomas Massey, I would say. Boy. You know? He needs to have a war chest because they're gonna unleash a lot of money against him. He needs to have a war chest. He needs because he's fighting for all of us, I think, on this. Speaker 0: Boy, there's there's no doubt about it. And and I still think that, there's a lot of people who like the special interest, and they don't wanna give up with it. But I think if you took 10 of his positions against 10 of, the positions of those people who are trying to get rid of them Yeah. And compare them, I think it has to be 70 or 80% of the American people say, oh, we'd we'd we'd vote for this guy. Yeah. But as soon as you get labels on there and political shenanigans and That's right. And and and also threats thrown at them, you know, Well, you know, I I didn't wanna go I didn't wanna retire yet, so I better I better just go along with it this time. Yeah. Then they do. Exactly. So it's a mess. Yeah. Pure democracy is a contributing factor to all this. So soon as we can rally and influence and badger, you know, 51%, we can do anything we want. And Trump has actually made those statements that that he can do whatever he wants. Speaker 1: And we're not against Trump. We want him to do the right thing, but this isn't the right thing. I'm gonna since we're about out of time, I'm gonna skip ahead if we can to that final clip, if that's okay with you. Speaker 0: Here we go. Speaker 1: The very last clip. And to remind you that this is the gentleman that you will be spending the afternoon with when you come to see us on August 16 in Dulles, Virginia, the great colonel Douglas MacGregor. You've seen him on show after show. You've seen him on Tucker. You've seen him everywhere. Well, he is giving his time to be with us on that Saturday. Here's a quote. We are moving toward war with Iran, and the chosen destination is Armageddon. That's a great quote from colonel MacGregor. He's gonna share his insights at our blueprint for peace conference. I will put a link in the description to get those tickets today. Get them while they're still available. Come join us. We've gotta stand up. We've gotta stand up for peace. We've gotta stand up against wars. We can't let our guard down, and we'll also have a little bit of fun too. Speaker 0: Very good. He's been a close friend, and, we will continue to be working with him, and hopefully he has more influence. He does have influence because an intellectual has influence that you never can measure. And he has already influenced a lot of people. And if if it looks like he's approaching the power structure, then they'll come down on him, and then they won't include him. But anyway, I think truth wins out in the end. And I I think that is very true, and that's why I think I am very sincere in dedicating our efforts to peace and prosperity with our our our organization. And I think that is so important because if you wanna live in a happy world, why don't you just just have one rule? Why why don't you make everything voluntary? You know, whether they're business agreements, sexual agreements, religious agreements, or whatever. Just say, well, if there are two sides to it, you can't do it. You have a veto if both sides don't agree. And that's what happens in most economic matters even today. You go in and if somebody wants to sell you a product and it's, 10 times more than you want, you voluntarily say, woah. I'm I'm out of here. So it volunteerism is just a great symbol because that's a principle of liberty. And yet the opposite, the authoritarians, the people who want authoritarianism, which includes just about every other philosophy to some degree, that that means the the bureaucrats and the authoritarians in charge, they like power and they like to tell people what to do, and they say, well, we'll make a better world as long as you listen to it. And the ultimate test is the authoritarians found in socialism. I'll tell you what, there's a lot of people still though that know and want to live a free society, and we're gonna do our best to continue that effort. I wanna thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report. Please come back soon.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 26, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Saved - June 27, 2025 at 6:34 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Thank you @SecKennedy for delivering a dose of transparency and common sense.

@SecKennedy - Secretary Kennedy

In its zeal to promote universal vaccination, @gavi, the Vaccine Alliance has neglected the key issue of vaccine safety. When vaccine safety issues have come before GAVI, it has treated them not as a patient health problem, but as a public relations problem. During the COVID-19 pandemic, GAVI partnered with the World Health Organization to recommend best practices for social media companies to silence dissenting views and to stifle free speech and legitimate questions during that period. GAVI should consider the best science available, even when that science contradicts established paradigms. It should define success not just in terms of the number of vaccines delivered, but on their rigorously measured overall impacts. I call on GAVI to re-earn the public trust and to justify the $8 billion dollars that America has provided in funding since 2001. Until that happens the United States won’t contribute more to GAVI. Business as usual is over.

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The speaker addressed the Gavi community, stating that public trust in institutions, including medicine, has eroded. They allege that Gavi and the WHO partnered to silence dissenting views during the COVID-19 pandemic and made questionable recommendations regarding COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women. While acknowledging Gavi's success in making medicine affordable, the speaker claims Gavi neglects vaccine safety, treating it as a PR problem rather than a health concern. They cite a 2017 study that found the DTP vaccine, heavily promoted by Gavi in developing countries, may increase all-cause mortality in children. The speaker urges Gavi to re-earn public trust and justify the $8 billion in US funding by taking vaccine safety seriously and considering all available science. They state that the US will not contribute further to Gavi until it prioritizes rigorously measured overall impacts and evidence-based medicine.
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Speaker 0: I'm pleased to have this opportunity to address the Gavi community. We're living now in a time of upheaval, a time of popular revolt against established institutions that have lost the public trust, and that includes medicine. President Trump and I are committed to earning it back. We will do that by preserving what is honest, what serves our country and the world, and we will sweep away that which is not. A major concern that I share with the president is how the World Health Organization and Gavi partnered together during the COVID nineteen pandemic to recommend best practices for social media companies to silence dissenting views, to stifle free speech and legitimate questions during that period. In addition, Gavi has continued to make questionable recommendations encouraging pregnant women to receive COVID nineteen vaccines. Having said that, there's much that I admire about Gavi, especially its commitment to making medicine affordable to all the world's people. Gavi has done that part of its job very well. Unfortunately, in its zeal to promote universal vaccination, it has neglected the key issue of vaccine safety. When vaccine safety issues have come before Gavi, Gavi has treated them not as a patient health problem, but as a public relations problem. One example is the DTP vaccine, which the developed world replaced a long time ago with a much safer DTaP vaccine. A landmark study in 2017 by five highly regarded mainstream vaccine experts found that girls vaccinated with DTP were 10 times more likely to die from all causes in the first six months of life than those children who are unvaccinated. A 2017 study was published in an Elsevier peer reviewed journal which collaborates with The Lancet and was funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and the European Union. The authors of this study were five internationally revered deities of vaccine research, all of whom are strong vaccine proponents. The study therefore concluded, and I quote, all currently available evidence suggests that the DTP vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it saves from diphtheria, tetanus, or pertussis, end quote. Gavi has nonetheless promoted the DTP vaccine heavily in developing countries. It's now the most popular vaccine in the world despite compelling peer reviewed research by eminent scientists associating it with very high increases in all cause mortality among children. When the science was inconvenient, Gavi ignored the science. I call on Gavi today to reearn the public trust and to justify the $8,000,000,000 that America has provided in funding since 02/2001. And I'll tell you how to start taking vaccine safety seriously. Consider the best science available even when the science contradicts established paradigms. Until that happens, The United States won't contribute more to Gobi. To find success not just in terms of the number of vaccines delivered, but on their rigorously measured overall impacts. Business as usual is over. Unaccountable and opaque policymaking is over. I invite all of you to join us in a new era of evidence based medicine, old standard science, and integrity. Thank you very much.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 22, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Saved - June 23, 2025 at 5:17 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

ICYMI: @RepRoKhanna and I appeared on @FaceTheNation this morning to discuss our War Powers Resolution. Congress has the sole authority to authorize war. @SpeakerJohnson should bring our Resolution to the floor for a vote immediately. https://t.co/m6FavbVKyH

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Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey have partnered on a war powers resolution to prevent unauthorized US military action against Iran. Massey argues that military action was taken without Congressional consultation while Congress was on recess. Khanna says the US triumphantly declares missions accomplished, but Americans bear the consequences for decades. Khanna questions the justification for recent actions, suggesting they may push Iran to covertly develop nuclear weapons, risk American troops, and waste resources. He says many people want regime change in Iran and are pushing the president to bomb. Massey says the promise to put America first is not isolationism, but non-interventionism. He questions whether limited bombings will deter Iran's nuclear ambitions and expresses concern over potential future escalations if Israel is attacked again. Khanna supports defensive aid to Israel but opposes offensive weapons used against Gaza. He says the US is creating a generation of hate and failing to learn from past mistakes.
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Speaker 0: Welcome back to Face the Nation. Democrat Ro Khanna joins us from San Francisco, and here in studio is Kentucky Republican Thomas Massey. And good morning to both of you gentlemen. I'll start with you, congressman Massey. You know, I know this is an unlikely pairing. You are on completely different ends of the political spectrum, but you both worked on this war powers resolution to prohibit US forces from engaging in hostilities against Iran without authorization from congress. President just blew right past that. Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think I represent part of the coalition that elected president Trump. We were tired of endless wars in The Middle East and tired of wars in East Eastern Europe. And, we were promised that we would put our veterans, our immigration policies, and our infrastructure first. And, so, what Roe and I did, we did this last week when, you know, they were rattling the sabers because we saw this coming. We put forward this war powers resolution. I've teamed up with Ro Khanna before on this. To his credit, when Joe Biden was president, we tried to rein in the executive and reassert Congress's authority, sole authority, to declare war and to and to engage or authorize the engagement of acts of war. Speaker 0: Something we talked to to other lawmakers about as well in the senate. I know there's efforts to support you, but the speaker of the house, who is from your own party, has really rejected this. He says the article one power of congress really allows for the president to do this. It was a limited, necessary, targeted strike, he says. Speaker 1: Well, he's probably referring to the War Powers Act of 1973, but that's been misinterpreted. There were no imminent threat to The United States, which was what would authorize that. And I think that's peculiar to hear that from the Speaker of the House. Look, Congress was on vacation last week when all this was happening. Speaker 0: Speaker haven't been briefed on any of Speaker 1: the haven't been briefed. They should have called us all back. And frankly, we should have debated this war powers resolution that Ro Khanna and I offered instead of staying on vacation and doing fundraisers and saying, oh, well, the president's got this under control. We're gonna cede our constitutional authority. Speaker 0: Ro Khanna Congressman Khanna, and we didn't hear from the secretary the explanation as to why now. We haven't heard that from anyone, other than a reference to the president had a roughly sixty day timeline on diplomatic talks. But we also know we had more talks scheduled when Israel launched this attack. So it's just it's not exactly clear the emergency. You will be briefed, along with other members of Congress, Tuesday. What are the questions you have? Speaker 2: Well, first of all, the tragedy in this country is that we keep entering these overseas wars. We triumphantly declare the mission is accomplished the day after, and then we're left with Americans bearing the consequences for decades. Now Thomas is absolutely right in showing courage. I mean, the headlines all across this country says The United States enters war with Iran. He is actually representing a lot of the people in the MAGA base, people like Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Theo Vaughan, who has had them on, who's saying, we don't want this war. And I heard your interview with secretary Rubio. He's saying, well, we want a peace deal. Yeah. We wanna make sure that Iran can enrich uranium through civil purposes. Well, we have that. We have that at the JCPOA, and there was not a single violation that the IEAE found during that time. So my question, I guess, is now you're gonna force Iran to go covertly in developing this nuclear material. Now you put American troops at risk. Now you're wasting billions of our dollars because we're sending more troops to the Middle East. What did you accomplish, and why are you oblivious to the American people who are sick of these wars? Speaker 0: To but congressman, are you open to the idea that there could be intelligence that is disclosed to you in this classified setting on Tuesday that could justify this? Or or is any military action, in your view, you know, war? Speaker 2: Well, I'm always open to new intelligence, but the procedure should have been that congress was briefed before we decided to enter war and that we actually had a vote on it. You have Tulsi Gabbard, who just months ago, the director of intelligence, saying that was not the case. The reality is and and and we should just speak openly. Are people who want regime change in Iran, and they are egging this president on to bomb. I hope cooler heads will prevail. We need to pass Thomas Massie and my war powers resolution to make it clear that we're not going to get further entrenched into the Middle East. Speaker 0: And and congressman Massey, it's interesting because you were talking about a part of the party you represent. The secretary of state comes from a different part of that same party, as you know. And and I did hone in on the question about intelligence and what it showed. He called it an ambition to weaponize. Weaponization ambition. That's different than they're making a nuclear weapon. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 0: But are you open to intelligence and persuasion here? Speaker 1: I'm open as well. But look, in the first Iraq war, the second Iraq war, and the war in Afghanistan, Congress first got the briefings, Congress met and debated. It should have been declarations of war, but at least they did an authorization of use military force. We haven't had that. This has been turned upside down, this process. Speaker 0: Well, heard from Mitch McConnell, the the former Republican leader, the senator say it was a bad week for the isolationists. He was talking about Tucker Carlson, and he was talking about Steve Bannon. Do you think that the president is making a choice here, or is he trying to have it both ways? Both saying, I'm gonna please the hawks of the party by bombing, but then I'm going to say I want a peace deal and make the isolationists happy by saying, you know, I'm not committing to anything more than one and done. Speaker 1: Well, I'll concede this. It was a good week for the neocons in the military industrial complex who want war all the time. I wouldn't call my side of the MAGA base isolationists. We are we are exhausted. We are tired from all of these wars, and we're non interventionists. I mean, this is what this was one of the promises. I mean, are you gonna call President Trump's campaign an isolationist campaign? What he promised us was we would put America first. And I and I think there are still voices in this administration. You've still got J. D. Vance, you've still got Tulsi Gabbard, you still R. F. K. Jr, you still got calmer heads that could prevent Speaker 0: They were not persuasive in this case, clearly. Speaker 1: Well, somebody was persuasive. AIPAC is very persuasive, instance, the Israeli lobby in Congress. If you if you look at my colleagues' feeds now, they all look the same. They're all tweeting the same message that we've gotta support Israel and we've gotta do this. My question is, does, you know, three bombings and we're done with Iran's nuclear ambitions? Is that the two weeks to slow the spread of 2025? Is this, you know, we were told two weeks to slow the spread then, now we're told it's just gonna take three bombings. But, what happens when Israel gets bombed again? Speaker 2: Mhmm. Speaker 1: Is is Trump gonna sit by and say, no, we're not gonna further engage in this war? Speaker 0: I tried to get answers from the secretary on that question. But when you say the pro Israel lobby, APAC, do you see a difference between Israel's interest and American interests? Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, look, Iran, the reality is they don't have a missile that can reach The United States. They're not near to getting a missile that can reach The United States. I think this what has happened, what has transpired this week has been planned for months. That that, you know, this administration and maybe even the administration prior to that said, you go in and soften them up, take out their air defense capabilities, and then we'll send in the big bombers. Speaker 0: So, congressman Khanna, I know you have raised objections, on this program in the past about Israel's operations in Gaza for how it has conducted that war against Hamas. That was a different context. But now you very well may be asked to provide more weaponry to Israel to defend itself. Do you oppose that as well? Speaker 2: Well, first, let me just say that it's a totally unfair smear to call people isolationists. The vast majority of Americans who don't want more war and want diplomacy. Diplomacy and engagement is not isolationism. But, look. On Israel, I have supported, aid and support defensively. And even the war powers resolution says that if Iran is striking Israel, they you we can provide defense so that Israel isn't hit. What I opposed was giving Israel offensive weapons to go kill more people in Gaza. I think that war needs to end. But I think the bottom line, Margaret, is what have we achieved here? We have we're gonna push Iran to now be like Pakistan or North Korea, go in and try to develop a nuclear bomb, covertly. We have put more American troops at risk. We're gonna spend more resources put going and getting more entrenched in the Middle East, and we've created a generation of hate. It's like, can this country learn? Speaker 0: Yeah. Speaker 2: We keep voting for people, for president who say we're not gonna get into war, and then they keep getting pushed Well by the Washington Beltway to get us into this mess. Speaker 0: Congressman Khanna, congressman Massey, thank you. In a rare bipartisan meeting of the minds, at least on this issue. We'll be right back.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 23, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Saved - June 23, 2025 at 5:52 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

.@realDonaldTrump declared so much War on me today it should require an Act of Congress. #sassywithmassie https://t.co/ZrMiIKcAxu

RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 22, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Saved - June 22, 2025 at 10:29 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

This is not America First folks. https://t.co/UllkiycVRv

RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 21, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Saved - June 22, 2025 at 1:52 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

This is not Constitutional.

@realDonaldTrump - Donald J. Trump

https://t.co/wu9mMkxtUg

RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 21, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Saved - June 21, 2025 at 8:13 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Start at 14:53 in this interview if you want to know about AIPAC, the group that gives millions of dollars to my colleagues so they’ll support things like US involvement in Israel’s war against Iran. FWIW, AIPAC spent $400k against me last election and is banned from my office.

@TuckerCarlson - Tucker Carlson

Rep. Thomas Massie doesn’t care what you think of him, which is pretty great. (3:19) Where Does US Debt End? (10:32) Why Massie Voted 15 Times Against Funding Israel (14:53) AIPAC (34:04) Mitch McConnell (42:25) Area 51 (50:32) Massie's Relationship with Trump (57:09) Kill Switches in Cars (1:05:58) Mike Johnson and the Deep State (1:14:34) How Massie Got Into Politics (1:18:29) Living off the Grid

Video Transcript AI Summary
Congressman Thomas Massie recounts stories illustrating government waste and overreach. He wears a debt clock badge to highlight the urgency of the national debt, which he says is increasing by $100,000 per second. He notes that the U.S. is financing the debt by effectively "taxing the world" through inflation, due to the dollar's status as the reserve currency. However, he warns this is unsustainable, especially as sanctions push other countries away from using the dollar. Massie criticizes foreign aid spending, particularly to Ukraine and Israel, arguing it primarily benefits the defense industry. He opposed a bill defining antisemitism, fearing it could stifle free speech by banning certain biblical passages or comparisons of Israeli policies to the Nazi regime. Massie discusses the influence of APAC, alleging they pressure members of Congress to support Israel and that he may be the only Republican in Congress who hasn't done homework for them. He also describes his off-grid, self-sustaining lifestyle on his Kentucky farm, where he built his timber-frame house and generates his own power and water.
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Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Do you Speaker 1: know James Carville? Yes. So he got stuck at a roast one time when we worked together in New Orleans and had to take a leak and was on C SPAN. And on the tape, which I have seen, he's sitting there and he's kinda shuffling in his seat and all of sudden he takes this water pitcher off the table and sort Speaker 0: of He's like, so we can the water pitcher. Oh, gosh. So Speaker 1: what what is that thing moving on your lapel on your pocket? It's the debt. It's my anxiety generator. So it's it's actually making me really anxious. Is that is that real time? Speaker 0: Yes. So it synced to treasury. It gets the debt to the penny once a day, and then it looks at what the debt was a year ago, and it comes up with a rolling average debt per second, and it interpolates on weekends and holidays when the when the treasury is not paying attention. I am. So I think you're the only Speaker 1: one who wants to know. Speaker 0: Yes. And I want my colleagues to know and it's great to wear this thing in an elevator with like Adam Schiff and he's got nowhere to look. I once caught a a female congresswoman staring at it and had to tell her my eyes were up here. She asked me why I didn't make a belt buckle out of it. Speaker 1: Can you say who it was because I like No. I cannot. Oh. Well, she's funny. That's that's very impressive. So what's the message of it? Speaker 0: The message is this is urgent. You know, it's it's hard to comprehend 14 digits of debt, but when you see the last five digits are moving so fast you can't, you know, perceive them with your eyes, then you kind of understand, woah, we got a problem here. I mean, it's a $100,000 a second roughly. So imagine we had this catapult and we were launching cyber trucks once a second into the ocean. That's how much debt we're taking on continuously. Now, is some good news. I noticed last month, it went down. And I'm like, is my debt clock broken? Why is it going down? And I realized, oh, it's April 15. Everybody's paying their taxes. Right. So the good news is we balanced it for a month. The bad news is April 15 is the only reason that happened and now the debt's going back up again. Speaker 1: So maybe it when it gets so big, it becomes something that you have to ignore. It's almost like if you fall off the wagon from drinking, you you binge. If you fall off your New Year's diet, you just eat the pizza and a Right. Ben and Jerry's. Like, do you care? You know, you sort of go crazy and it feels like we're there. Speaker 0: I am trying to make I wear this on the floor of the house. Yeah. And, people literally, they'll they'll press the button that says yay or nay. I've I've argued we should relabel the voting button spend and don't spend. Yeah. They're red and green if you got that far and can't read. I say it's like stop and go, but I've seen people press the spend button then turn around and look at my debt badge and ask, did it just go up? But I want them to realize there are consequences to what they're doing because they have been, I think, as you said, just ignoring it, putting it off to the Speaker 1: feels like, you know, it's so big that why even deal with it? Speaker 0: That's where we are. We're kind of I think a lot of lawmakers are apathetic. Yes. They're like, well, we can't fix it. We're not gonna fix it. We might as well indulge in it and I'll see what I can get. Speaker 1: Well, exactly. Yeah. So where does it end? Speaker 0: Right now, we're able to finance it because we're the world's reserve currency. Right. And when we print more money, which we're doing all the time, the Fed is doing that. We're actually taxing the world. Everybody in the world who hold holds dollars gets like a 3% transaction fee. I say, we're kind of like the credit card at the gas station that gets 3% because you're using that credit card. Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 0: Well, we get 3% from inflation we cause because the world is using our currency and we can do that as long as they use our currency. But I think it's going to end at some point, they're going to quit using our dollars as reserve currency. I mean, I watched your interview with Putin and one of the things, you know, whether you hate him or not, one of the things he said that is true is when we sanctioned him, before we sanctioned Russia, 70% of their transactions were in US dollars. And after the sanctions, it's less than 20% of their transactions are in US dollars. So what we're doing with all these sanctions, ironically, we're shooting ourselves in the foot every time we sanction a country and say you can't use our currency to have a transaction. We're we're taking away our ability to charge them 3% for that transaction because when we print 3% more dollars, we're just taking that money. Speaker 1: And we're also sending a really clear signal which is the dollar is not safe for you. Right. That is the reserve currency because it's a safe haven because it's a stable country. It's the most stable country in the world and we're not going to weaponize the dollar because that would be shooting ourselves, but suddenly we are. And they'll they'll tolerate like 3% because we're not backed by dollars, we're backed by aircraft carriers right now. Speaker 0: So they'll they'll sort of tolerate that 3%. But one of the things we recently did in congress, we passed something called the Repo Act, where we said we're just gonna seize all of Russia's sovereign assets in The United States. Well, it turns out a lot of that is treasury debt that they've agreed to buy, so that they can hold dollars. And here's here's the problem with that, when people see that we've seized their money that they gave us in exchange for these treasury notes, then other countries won't want to buy our debt. It's already happening. And the price of a long term bond that the treasury puts out will go it's already gone above 4%. It's like over four and a half percent. They don't wanna buy them anymore because, you know, we probably wouldn't seize Great Britain's assets. But I could see a seizing China's assets. Speaker 1: Why would I mean, that seems like theft. Just like take a country's assets. I mean, that belongs to the people of the country. Right? It's such as Putin. It is theft. Speaker 0: Like, it's immoral, but even if you're okay with the the amorality or immorality of it, it's shortsighted because eventually it'll catch up with us. Speaker 1: So do any of the dumbos you work with understand that? Did you say, wait a second, if we do this first of all, it's wrong and if we're going to be a beacon of light and order and justice in the world, we should abide by those principles. But even if you don't care about the even if as you said, you're right, amoral, like it's self defeating to do this. Do they understand that? Speaker 0: Some of them understand it, but it doesn't matter. They'll still vote for something like the Repo Act anyway because it's popular. And With whom? With voters. They think, yeah, take Russia's money. Like, you know, let's take yeah. Yeah. That'd be great. Let's take their money and use it in a war against them. It kinda feels good, but the problem is it's it's not moral in the long run and it won't work in the long run even if you were okay with it. Speaker 1: Why are we in a war with Russia? I've never figured that out. Why Russia? It almost seems like they picked it off a mat. Like, why would it be at war with Russia? Speaker 0: You know what's interesting is we were in Afghanistan, and I was tracking this. I I talked to the special inspector general, John Sopko, about twice a year about the money that was being wasted in Afghanistan. It was about $50,000,000,000 a year, and I was glad to see us get out of Afghanistan, but kind of like feathering the clutch and shifting gears, we just went from second gear to third gear because as soon as we quit spending $50,000,000,000 a year in Afghanistan, we started spending more than $50,000,000,000 a year in Ukraine. There's a military industrial complex, they call it the defense industrial base now in The United States. They say we have to they're hungry and we gotta keep them fed and since we don't have any of our own wars and we don't have a reason to deplete our stocks and our bombs and weapons that we have, we'll engage in these other things to keep them healthy and thriving. In fact, the Biden administration even made that argument in a letter to congress for why we should do this supplemental foreign aid to Israel, to Ukraine, to Taiwan. They made the argument that the defense industrial base needs to be strong, and so we need to spend this money. And they gave a list of all the states in The United States that would benefit from this spending and that's why they said we should do it. Speaker 1: But if you're if I mean, look, everyone who lives here wants to be proud of the country. I always have been. And I I'm proud of its people still. But if your main export is death, you know, that I mean, what Speaker 0: It doesn't work in the long run. Mean, there is Which wrong. We're engendering a lot of ill will. Look, ten years ago, even more recently than that, the only way we could get to the space station was on a Russian rocket. Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 0: And we, you know, we had a collaboration with them. We were able to get to space that way and now we don't. I mean, it's and the bad thing that's, you know, like in The Middle East, Israel's creating tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of of people who are gonna hate The United States and and you know, they're gonna hate Israel also. But because we're giving Israel the weapons to do what they're doing, we're creating a lot of people who hate us in this country. Speaker 1: But we're told that it's essential to our national security to do that. Do you believe that? Speaker 0: No. I don't see that. I mean, one of one of the reasons, like I said, the Biden letter said, well, we need to keep our industrial base strong, so let's fund all these weapons and send them over. But I don't see how it's strengthening our country. In fact, we're getting weaker by doing it. Speaker 1: So you've been, I think, the lone republican to dissent from a lot of these votes. Can you like, how many votes have there been Oh my gosh. On this question and where have Speaker 0: you voted on them? Oh, I've I've tried to keep track. There were something like 18 votes on Ukraine and I voted against every one of them since like 2014. When we started, you know, saber rattling. We do these non binding resolutions whereas, you know, Russia's evil, you know, whereas we support democracy. Now, then we knew that Ukraine was just corrupt as hell, but, you know, I Speaker 1: Like the most corrupt country in Europe by far. Yeah. Speaker 0: So I started you know, there's been 16 or 20 votes on Ukraine. I've been against all of those. Just in the last seven months, there have been probably 30 votes on Israel and The Middle East. 30? 30. There were somebody How Speaker 1: many votes on The US border during that time? Speaker 0: Oh, maybe maybe four show votes that, you know, where we know they're going nowhere in the senate. Look, we haven't named 30 So they're post offices. Like, last month, we voted like 15 or 16 times on issues related to Israel. And, you know, I've been hit because I voted no on all of those. Speaker 1: Why do you because you hate Israel or is there another reason? Speaker 0: No. Because I'm against sending our money overseas. I'm against starting another proxy war. I'm against sanctions because it's gonna weaken the dollar. I'm for free speech. Like all of these resolutions run afoul of those things and that's why I can't vote for them. Speaker 1: Tell us what the free speech part of it. Speaker 0: So recently, they brought a bill to congress, and this was actually a binding bill, not a non binding resolution. Right. This was gonna have the effect of law and people would get, you know, prosecuted if they engaged in anti semitism on campuses. And the problem with this bill is they use some international definition of anti semitism on a website somewhere. My first question is, why don't you just put the definition in the bill? Why are you pointing to somebody's URL in a piece of legislation? Speaker 1: You are the congress. Right? Speaker 0: Right. We are the congress. Speaker 1: Right? Should be. Speaker 0: Instead, we're referencing a website. Some that's not even, you know, hosted in The United States. And so, but so I went to this website and it's got a, you know, fairly short definition, but it's also got examples of things that would be considered anti Semitism. And some of these are actually passages in the New Testament, if you will, would be banned by this international definition of antisemitism. For instance, saying that Jews killed Jesus, which is, you know, in the Bible, he was he was not welcome among his own people. Okay? And so that would be anti semitism, and if you engaged in that on campus, or just offered that as a thought, let's say in a classroom, you would be anti semitic and you would run afoul of the Department of Education and some federal laws. And you know, there were other examples in there that were hard to believe. For instance, comparing the policies of Israel to to the Nazi regime would be anti semitic. But the question is, what if their what if their policies ever became the same? Is this a static definition? Speaker 1: Or what if we just have different opinions, and your opinion is now a crime? Speaker 0: Right. I mean, even if it's abhorrent. Speaker 1: Even if it's wrong and stupid. Speaker 0: Yeah. It's it's still legal. It should be. Speaker 1: You may have come to the obvious conclusion that the real debate is not between republican and democrat or socialist and capitalist, right, left. The real battle is between people who are lying on purpose and people who are trying to tell you the truth. It's between good and evil. It's between honesty and falsehood. And we hope we are on the former side. That's why we created this network, the Tucker Carlson Network. And we invite you to subscribe to it. You go to tuckercarlson.com/podcast. Our entire archive is there. A lot of behind the scenes footage of what actually happens in this barn when only an iPhone is running. Tuckercarlson.com/podcast. You will not regret it. So your colleagues, I I think it passed. Right? Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. It passed with flying colors, but at least a few people woke up to this. I mean, they were Speaker 1: So but the the members of congress who, you know, go to church on Sunday who've just voted to ban the New Testament on campus, make it illegal to quote from the New Testament, the Christian bible. Like, how did they square Speaker 0: that? I think their voters let them get away with it. I mean, they they don't have to square it unless they're Speaker 1: But why would they wanna do something like that? Speaker 0: Because there's a lot of pressure in Congress to vote for these things. And our Republican leadership thinks they're so smart, you know, we're in an election year, and they wanna bring up issues. They wanna put them in front of Congress and make us vote on them whether they're going anywhere in the Senate or not, and they wanna split the democrats. They wanna show that republicans are united and then split the democrats. That's one of the reasons they do it. Another reason they do it is there's a foreign interest group called APAC that's, you know, got the ear of this current speaker and demanded 16 votes in April on on Israel or The Middle East. We haven't had 16 votes in April on The United States in Congress. So what's APAC? APAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. And they didn't start out as a PAC in in the sense of a political action committee, but now they have a political action committee. Ostensibly, it's a group of Americans who lobby on behalf of Israel. They're for anything Israel. And they're very effective lobbying group. They get in there, they they try to get me to write a white paper as a candidate for instance for congress. They almost get On on what? On Israel. Like, and I wouldn't do it. And they said, why? And I'm like, I don't do homework for lobbyists. Right? I'm like, I didn't learn I didn't like writing term papers at college. I'm not writing one for you. Speaker 1: What did they say? Speaker 0: They said, oh, well, here just copy Rand Paul's term paper and put your name on it. We'll accept that. I'm like, no. I'm still not cribbing somebody else's homework to do homework. I'm not turning in my homework for you. And and what I hear laughing, but you know what? I bet I may be the only republican in congress who hasn't done homework for APAC. And it's just what it is, it's conditioning. They want you to do something very simple and benign and you know, for them. They don't really they don't really grade your term paper, they just want to know that you'll do something for them and if you'll do something for them as a candidate, you're more likely to do something for them as as a congressman when you get in there. So this my rift started out in 2012 when I refused to turn in an Israel respond to that? Well, they kind of got in my race a little too late there in the beginning, and because it was hard to tell that I was actually going to win, and when they saw I was going to win, that's when they tried to get me to do the term paper. They didn't have a political action committee at the time. They couldn't spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars against me at that time. It was just sort of like a whisper campaign to try to, hey, don't vote for him, blah blah blah. Speaker 1: Because why? Speaker 0: Because at that point, they sensed I wouldn't do what they wanted when Speaker 1: I got But what did they whisper against you? What were they saying about you? Speaker 0: Well, they would do it through, for instance, churches, evangelical churches. They've got an organization called Christians United for Israel, where they sort of co opted evangelicals. People think it's a grassroots movement in Kentucky, it's actually a top down movement from APAC, so that people who aren't even Jewish will feel like they've got to support Israel, you know, no matter what. And even if it's a secular state that funds abortions, they, you know, just sort of forget that part and we've got to fund Israel. So they have networks, so it's more than just about the money. Speaker 1: So you get elected despite their efforts, and then what happens? Do you talk to them after that? Speaker 0: And by the way, let me just put a little footnote here. I'm not against Israel. I've never voted to sanction Israel. I've never said anything particularly, you know, critical of Israel, you know, other than, for instance, right now, they're bombing they've killed 1% of the civilian population in Gaza. That's concerning to me. But so what do they do now? Speaker 1: Yeah. You get elected 02/2012. Do you hear from them again? Speaker 0: I vote my conscience, which they won't tolerate. So they ran with their five zero one c four before they had a super PAC. They were they were running educational advocacy ads against me saying that, you know, I'm bad on Israel. They didn't say don't vote for him, they just said he's he's a bad guy. And so I said, alright, well you're not welcome in my office anymore, because for years I I invited him into my office, let's talk this through, let me explain to you. I'm a libertarian leaning republican, I don't vote for foreign aid for anybody, so don't be offended when I don't vote for your foreign aid. I don't vote for wars anywhere, so don't be offended if I tell you that. I'm for free speech, even if it's abhorrent. And you know, we used to talk, but now they're banned from my office. The situation went from bad to worse. This election cycle, they spent $400,000 against me. $90,000 last fall running TV ads in my district, and Facebook ads, and whatnot, trying to equate me with the squad. And then this most recently, and in fact, as I'm speaking you to you today, even though my election is over, they're still running hundreds of thousand dollars of negative ads. Speaker 1: It's a little weird though, because as you said, you're probably the only republican in the house who hasn't done homework for them, who isn't on their side. And but the and that's okay. I mean, you can have, you know, you're a libertarian oriented republican from Northern Kentucky. You're probably not gonna single handedly determine our foreign policy. So you I think you should, but you don't Thank Speaker 0: you. Speaker 1: And you're Speaker 0: not going Speaker 1: to. So why do they care? Why not just let Thomas Massey be Thomas Massey in Northern Kentucky? Like, why why the need to crush you? Speaker 0: I don't know. I think it's they don't want one horse out of the barn. If one person starts speaking the truth, they're afraid it could be contagious, perhaps. Or it's like a new car. They they go to Mike Johnson, they say we want a Cadillac, you know, Escalade with pearl white paint, and here's, you know, here's the rims we want, and Mike Johnson puts that bill on the floor, it passes with a unanimous vote except for one guy votes no, and it I think they feel like it's a scratch on their car. They wanted a brand new car and it got scratched by this guy named Massey. They were gonna drive it over to the senate and ask for unanimous consent. But now the senators just say, wait, why this wasn't unanimous in the house. Why should we do it unanimously in the senate? And it starts raising questions and I think that's why they get mad. Speaker 1: What I find interesting is it's not just that they disagree with your views, which they do, and I think they have an absolute right to disagree with anybody's views. We all do. But they've called you a bigot, and call you an anti Semite and say you're a hater and try to destroy your character. That seems like a very different level of response to me. Speaker 0: Right. They there's no need to do that. I'm not anti Semitic. I don't have an anti Semitic hair in my head. Okay? It's I I mean, I don't like APAC anymore. Like, I used to be neutral toward APAC. Right? But I I have no antagonistic feelings toward Jewish people. I I am the last thing. I think I'm probably the least xenophobic person in congress. I mean, are the guys that my colleagues wanna sanction everybody, you know, declare them terrorist states, you know, come up with these strongly worded resolutions. I don't vote for any of that crap. Right? I'll unless somebody does harm to me, I'm not gonna call them anything. So I get called names just for staying out of all of this political posture. Speaker 1: That's disgusting though, isn't it? Speaker 0: You know, I guess Speaker 1: That's your character. They can disagree with your views Speaker 0: Right. Speaker 1: But but to call you like the worst thing you can Speaker 0: be in America, like, that's disgusting. You know, I I have a thick skin. Apparently. And and here's the good news, Tucker. My my constituents aren't falling for it. Two weeks ago, I just had a primary and got 76% of the vote. With APAC running hundreds of thousand dollars of ads. So it's it's not working against me. I I think it's shortsighted on their, you know, on their side to do this. They're just burning money, but they're trying to make an example of me Speaker 1: But they're also exposing their weakness. Speaker 0: I think they are. I think they've exposed a real weakness here. And, you know, it used to be just me voting against some of these resolutions, but recently where they tried to ban passages in the New Testament, I think we got like almost two dozen Republicans who said, wait, hold on there. Speaker 1: Just fundamental question. So the Biden administration has put a bunch of people in jail for violating something called FARA, the foreign agent registration act, nineteen thirty six ish. It's been on the books for, you know, ninety years. And it's never been enforced ever until recently, until really the Trump era and Biden era. So but the law requires people who lobby on behalf of foreign governments to register. It was that simple. And this is the largest lobby in the night most effective lobby in The United States on behalf of a foreign government. Are they registered with FARA? Speaker 0: They are not, but they should be. Speaker 1: Well, how how can that how can that be? How can they put Paul Manafort in jail, which they did, on a FARA violation and a bunch of other people in jail on fairer violations, but the largest and most effective and most feared foreign lobby working for a foreign government doesn't have to register under the law. That's insane. Speaker 0: Oh, man. Don't make me take their side, but I'll explain as best as I can what they're arguing. Speaker 1: Oh, may I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Speaker 0: Maybe No. Speaker 1: Should take their side. Speaker 0: I don't Well, I'm gonna agree with you at a second, but let me at least offer what I think is their argument. They they would say, we are Americans, you know, the members of APAC are Americans and that they have Yes. The right to free speech. Speaker 1: Paul Manafort's an American. Right. Right. Speaker 0: Yeah. That so there's the good rebuttal as FARA applies not to foreigners, to foreign agents Right. It's of foreign principles, agents of foreign principles. Americans lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. Correct. So this is A Pac is exactly what FAR is meant for. Now, would say, and we have a first amendment right. Okay. Well I agree. I agree with you there, but we also have election laws. And to the it's disclosure. Right? We're they're not FARA doesn't say you can't say Thomas Massie's, you know, an ignorant hillbilly. You're allowed to say that if you want to, but we just want to check where your money's coming from. Tell us where it's coming from, what you're spending it on, and if you are lobbying on behalf of a foreign country. So they should be, now to your point, they should be registered with FARA. This is what FARA is, is where there's gray area, where it's an American representing a foreign country. Let's let's look and see if you're getting any money from that foreign country. Are you a dual citizen with that foreign country? Are you being directed by for instance is Netanyahu speaking to your group, advising you on your next move? Those are you getting money from the military industrial complex? Like, because to understand APAC, I think it's easiest to model them as a military industrial lobby. Like, their biggest thing is they want more equipment, more military equipment from The United States going to Israel. In fact, when they used to be allowed in my office, the thing they the argument they would make is, oh, we're just stimulating the US military industrial complex because every single penny of the 3,800,000,000.0 that they nominally get, now they're getting way more than that, but that Israel nominally gets goes to US military contractors. Now that didn't make me warm and fuzzy, okay? But that is their argument. And if you notice what they advocate for, I think sometimes they advocate for things that even Israelis wouldn't advocate for. Speaker 1: I believe that. Speaker 0: Like they would, I think, be okay with a war with Iran, like a all out, you know, apocalyptic war with Iran. Whereas there are people in Israel saying, woah, hold on a second. We'd we'd rather not have a war with Iran. But APAC does things that lead us in that direction. And so they're kind of like what the NRA is to gun owners, APAC is to Israel. Or what the Farm Bureau is to farmers, APAC is to Israel. Other words Speaker 1: Represents a faction. Speaker 0: Right. They represent a faction, but usually a corporate faction. That and they're using the imprimatur of grassroots that they've diluted or confused into bullying congressmen. And the NRA does that, and Farm Bureau does that. I'm I'm picking on some, you know, other right wing groups here. Speaker 1: Well, for for sure. And by the way, I think there are probably a lot of things that APAC is for that I'm for, and Farm Bureau NRA same thing. Right. It's I just the idea of a foreign government playing in our political campaigns openly. Speaker 0: Openly in that they are showing you they're doing it, but opaquely in that you can't track it because they're not registered. Speaker 1: Is is there any other Republican who has your views on this? Speaker 0: Well, I have Republicans who come to me on the floor and say, I wish I could vote with you today. Yours is the right vote, but I would just take too much flack back home. And I have Republicans who come to me and say, that's wrong what APAC is doing to you. Let me talk to my APAC person. By the way, everybody but me has an APAC person. Speaker 1: What does that mean an APAC person? Speaker 0: It's like your babysitter, your APAC babysitter who is always talking to you for APAC. They're probably a constituent in your district, but they are, you know, firmly embedded in APAC and Every member has something like this? Every I don't know how it works on the democrat side, but that's how it works on the republican side. And when they and when they come to DC, you go have lunch with them. And they've got your cell number and you have conversations with them. So I've had like That's absolutely crazy. I've had four members of congress say, I'll talk to my APAC person and it's clearly what we call them, my APAC guy. I'll talk to my APAC guy and see if I can get them to, you know, dial those ads back. Speaker 1: Why have I never heard this before? Speaker 0: It doesn't benefit anybody. Why would they want to tell their constituents that they've basically got a buddy system with somebody who's representing a foreign country? It it doesn't benefit the congressman for people to know that, so they're not gonna tell you that. Speaker 1: It's it's in have you seen any other country do anything like this? Like No. Russia obviously determines the outcome of our elections. We keep hearing that. Does anyone have a Putin guy that they talk to? Speaker 0: Not only do they not have a Putin guy, look, they don't they they don't have a Britain guy. They don't have an Australian guy. They, you know, they don't have a Germany dude. Like, it's the only country that does this, that has somebody that like uniformly I guarantee there's some spreadsheet at APAC where where, you know, the the APAC dude is who's matched up with the congressman is there, and then all the congressman's votes on the issue. Oh, has the congressman been to Israel? They they pay for trips for congressmen and their spouses to go to Israel. I may be I mean, I don't I'm not the only Republican who hasn't taken the APAC trip to Israel, but I'm probably one of a dozen that hasn't taken that trip, and the other ones just haven't got around to it. Speaker 1: What's the trip like? Do you know? Speaker 0: It's kind of like, I think vacation y. You go see the wall, you go see the, you know, the sites, things like that. Speaker 1: It's such a great I must say, it's such a great country. Jerusalem especially is such a wonderful place that that's gotta have a big effect. Speaker 0: You go like swim in the Dead Sea. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I've done that. Speaker 0: Yeah. Speaker 1: Not on an APAC trip, but Right. I would recommend it to anyone. Speaker 0: Are you sure it wasn't an APAC trip? Speaker 1: I wasn't. Paid for it myself. No. I mean, it's it's just funny. I mean, I am a, like, a legit lover of Israel, of the place Israel. I like the people, and I love the food and, like, the whole thing is so great. Speaker 0: Look, they have they've Speaker 1: But that's distinct from the government of Israel, which is just a foreign government. Speaker 0: My my sense is the people are are very entrepreneurial. Speaker 1: Oh. Speaker 0: Yeah. Totally. They're publicly minded, you know, they care about their country, that that they're generally good people. Right? Speaker 1: That's certainly been my experience in trips there for sure. It's great. It's just that's I mean, I think it's probably one of my favorite, maybe my all time favorite place to go with my family. But that's just a completely different thing from taking orders from its government. Right. Right. I mean, right? Speaker 0: Now, they'll again, they'll say it's these are American citizens who are, you know, coordinating all Speaker 1: It has just again, this is almost a rhetorical question, but in your whatever twelve, fourteen years in congress, twelve years, have you ever seen any indication that Russia is influencing election outcomes or candidates or members? Speaker 0: Not not in a quiet way. Like, you know, they'll put out statements. Russia obviously has Russia Today, RT. Speaker 1: Yeah. Think it's been banned, but Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 0: I I like they you know, Kentucky Fried Chicken, of which I'm a big fan being from Kentucky. Right? They realized that fried was became sort of a pejorative and Yeah. People didn't wanna eat fried food, so they changed the name to KFC. So you don't have to say fried. Okay? Russia today changed their name to RT, so you don't have to say Russia. But there's a strong analogy there. But I mean, are efforts. You'd be a fool to think that they're not trying to influence things here just like we are there. We, you know, we have what is it? Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. Yes. We we have I mean, we spend a billion dollars over well over a billion dollars on the foreign propaganda that's out in the open that we know about. Right? So there are foreigners spending money on propaganda over here as well. I don't want to say they're not involved, but people don't say, oh, I need to go talk to my Russia guy. Speaker 1: But but you've never, like, in the cloakroom or on the floor or at dinner, you've never heard another Republican member say, I'd love to vote for this, but Putin doesn't want me to. Speaker 0: I have never heard that. Speaker 1: You have. Okay. What about China? Speaker 0: No. There's I mean, unless it's a a spy sleeping with a democrat. Yeah. I'm sure there's some of that going on. Speaker 1: Yeah. But that's not Right. Speaker 0: That's not Speaker 1: in public. So how do you think it's it's just interesting because you're you're clearly not a bigot. I think it's very obvious. And they've called you one and they've spent, you know, millions of dollars against you over the years and it has had no effect. Get reelected in the primary in the seventies. So like, why are they still spending against you in in your state, statewide? And can you just continue to serve in congress while disobeying? Speaker 0: Well, they say that they don't want me to run statewide. They're worried that I'll run for McConnell's seat. And so they're trying to send me a message. That's what they would tell you. But why I don't know what the message is. Speaker 1: Maybe It's a little presumptuous to decide I guess Speaker 0: to be I've never said that I'm running for the senate. Right? Yeah. I I'm pretty much disinterested in it personally and publicly. But just in case, they're running ads statewide. Now, mind you, there are six congressional districts in Kentucky, and I only represent one of them. They're running the ads in all six congressional districts, just in case. Speaker 1: Amazing. What do you think of Mitch McConnell after all these years of being in the delegation with him? Speaker 0: He's a shrewd guy. Yep. He's quick. He's let me let me give you an example of how quick he is. So we had a congressman Jamie Comer who's now chair of the committee. He got elected in a special election, which means you come in in the middle of a term. And you have to boot up with no staff and so it's it's kind of you know, disorienting. So Mitch McConnell had a had an event for Jamie Comer on his first day in congress. It was in a townhouse with like 200 lobbyists. By the way, I'm never gonna get invited to one of these now that I tell you the story. And so Jamie's there and McConnell goes, I believe Jamie took his first vote tonight. And Speaker 1: That is such a perfect invitation. And Speaker 0: I wasn't supposed to speak but I interrupted senator McConnell who was at the time the majority leader. And I said, yes, senator McConnell, he did take his first vote and I know he has no staff. So I advised Jamie, when you walk into the chamber, look at how I vote and then vote the other way and you'll be just fine. And every, you know, 200 lobbyists thought it was a pretty good joke and they were laughing and as the laughter died died down, McConnell goes, well, Thomas, I'm glad you and I are giving Jamie the same advice. And then the the place just the walls almost Speaker 1: No. He's good. He's good that So Speaker 0: but I think it's time for new leadership in the senate. I mean, he's obviously it's way past time. And this is just a fact, I'll say it, I'll get in trouble for saying it. You know, I'm in races in Kentucky, we poll things in case, you know, we poll Trump's popularity, we poll the senator's popularity, in case they get involved in your race. Yeah. And senator McConnell's favorabilities are lower among Republican primary voters than our Democrat governor's favorabilities. Speaker 1: Seriously? Yes. Lower than governor Bashir? Speaker 0: Yeah. Bashir's around 40% among Republican primary voters, and McConnell's around 30%. Speaker 1: Well deserved. Well deserved. So I'm glad to hear that because I like Kentucky and I think its voters are sensible. What do you think accounts for in the final months and years of his public career? His public statements that all that matters is Ukraine. Speaker 0: Like, what is I have no idea. By the way, I have so many fights in the house Yeah. That I try to avoid every fight in the senate that I can. And you're you're trying to draw me in and I love you and I'll indulge these questions, but for twelve years, my strategy has been pick my fights in the house. Smart. Let let Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Ted Cruz and and you know, JD Vance, Rick Scott. Let those guys figure out the senate, because I haven't been able to fix the house. So I'm damn sure not gonna be able to fix the senate. Speaker 1: But do you it's just interesting. Okay. Taking McConnell out of it Yeah. And and even the senate out of it, but some of the committee chairman in the house, for example, seem like Ukraine is all that matters to them. And there's, of course, the questions you noted of donations from Lockheed, etcetera, the military industrial complex, but it it almost seems messianic to me. It seems heartfelt to me. It seems sincere that they think that this is all that matters, winning this war against Russia. What do you have any sense of why they feel that way? Speaker 0: I don't. And the hardest ones to understand are people like Mike Johnson, who used to be against the, you know, sending more money to Ukraine, but now that he's the speaker, he's like you said, he seems strongly convicted that we should be sending money there. Speaker 1: Almost like it's a religious calling or something. I mean, seems totally real to me. It doesn't seem Speaker 0: I've heard the argument. I think it's immoral, but I've heard the argument that oh, this is a great deal. We just spend money and we're grinding up Russia's capacity to wage war, particularly lots of Russians are dying and so we're told that's that's a good thing, you know, for since the cold war began, we've been taught that it would be good for Russia to be diminished. But they're they've go so so far as to say Russians dying, you know, to the tune of 300,000 casualties, they say, is just such a great thing that we need to keep this this thing going. And my answer to that is, why don't you tell us the Ukrainian casualties? They you know, I have been in classified settings with CIA, the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, not not their assistants, but those people in the room, and they're they're bragging about how many Russians have died and been injured, and I asked them how many Ukrainians have died and been injured, and they claimed they didn't know. I mean, that's just a flat out lie, and they said they would get back to me, and they've never gotten back to me. Like, not only is are Americans being fed propaganda about this war, congress is being fed propaganda by our state department or and our secretary of defense and our intelligence agencies. And you can just ask a few questions in these classified hearings. If nothing else, my colleagues should be convicted of a lack of curiosity. Like, they they sit there and they believe everything they're told because these are supposed to be the authorities and they know things we don't, But you can expose them with two or three questions, like, how many Ukrainians have died? And they refuse to answer. Speaker 1: I've asked that very same question to Mike Johnson, actually, directly. But I've also asked him and a number of committee chairmen, just in personal conversations, Do you, like, do you believe your intel briefings? Because only a child would believe an intel briefing. Take it at face value, there may be truth in there. Right. Maybe largely true. But you're being spun. You're being manipulated. And if you don't know that, then you're a moron. But they seem to believe them. Speaker 0: They because they have no other reference. And then here's what else happens, Tucker. When you go into a classified setting, like a skiff, you lock up your phone, you take off your Fitbit, you take every electronic device. They even make me take off my debt badge. What? Yeah. I know. Speaker 1: Do you feel naked? Speaker 0: I feel exposed. I mean, do feel naked if I'm not wearing this. I've been wearing it for a year every day of my life. Okay? But they make you they strip you of every outside reference. Okay? And now your staff is not allowed in that meeting either. Remember congressmen, our primary roles are like raising money, being friendly to constituents, you know, putting on a good face, campaigning, and then then, you know, once a day or maybe twice a day we roll in there and press the vote buttons based on what staff advises you. Well, when you go into a SCIF, you don't have your smartphone, so you're not very smart. They start using acronyms that you don't know remember what the acronym stands for. You can't just like, okay, what are what's the IDGFBZ? I don't know, man. I must be stupid. Like, but you know, if you were in a regular setting, you just pull your phone out and like, oh, okay. That's what that is. I know what that is. And then you also can't ask your staff a question while you're in that setting, know, we have legislative staffers who handle certain specific areas. Speaker 1: Of course. Speaker 0: You can't bring them in and then when you go back to the office, you can't tell them what you heard. So it's really quite an experience. It's sort of it's, you know, it's a deprivation experience of any outside reference. Speaker 1: So it's designed to produce Stockholm syndrome, it sounds like. Speaker 0: Yes. And when you get in there, they really don't give you classified information. I say there's three levels of classification in the skiff. There's Facebook level, there's Twitter level and there's New York Times level. Like and the New York Times level is the highest level of classification. I mean, it's you're getting to the good stuff when they're telling you what's in the New York Times that week. Speaker 1: Have you ever heard anything you thought was genuinely secret? Speaker 0: Occasionally, just a few times and obviously I can't say what that is. But they slip up and commit candor occasionally in there. And you're like, woah, I didn't know that. You know, nothing like what's at Area 51. Speaker 1: Right? Speaker 0: But occasionally, you're just like, what do people think Speaker 1: is at Area 51, by the way? Speaker 0: I don't know. I'm not a You Speaker 1: you guys passed this law, the UAP disclosure act of 2023, and then they never disclosed anything. Speaker 0: Yeah. Speaker 1: What is that? Speaker 0: Not my area of expertise. Yes. Don't know. Speaker 1: But do members of congress ever say, wait a second, we're a co equal branch, a legislative branch. We have as much power as the president collectively. And you can't keep this stuff secret from us, you're not allowed to do that. Speaker 0: But see, like, I have this in hearings all the time. They'll say, I'll ask ATF director, this is this happened just last week. Dettelbach or I'll I'll ask Merrick Garland something or Christopher Wray. Like I've asked all them this and they give you the same answer. It's long standing DOJ policy not to comment on on ongoing investigations. And you know what? That's fine to tell a reporter, but you can't tell the branch of government that created you that, that funded you. You can't tell them that. That's why the omnibus was so disappointing to me, is the only way these three letter agencies are gonna come to heel is if we cut their funding in some specific area. I've joked we could just withhold one toner cartridge for one printer at the FBI, and they would come over with a whole binder full of information. But we can't even bring ourselves to deprive them of a toner cartridge. So we put 200,000,000 for new FBI building in the omnibus bill, and, you know, to their credit, Jim Jordan and Jamie Comer wouldn't didn't vote for that. And they're chairman of committees, but they are completely frustrated with the fact that the FBI just thumbs their nose Speaker 1: at it. So is that the speaker who allowed that to happen? Speaker 0: Oh, he absolutely allowed it to happen. Speaker 1: So to what extent are members of congress committee chairman leadership controlled by blackmail? Speaker 0: I really don't think there's much blackmail. Like if there is, I'm not aware of it. The I have people come up to me, you know, travel around the country, Texas and you know, other states, and speak to groups, food freedom groups, you know, first amendment, second amendment groups. And they come to me and they say, why did my congressman sell out? Like, I'll just Bob was such a great guy. And I campaigned for him, I made phone calls, I put up signs, and then we sent Bob to congress and he he votes the wrong way every time. Why is it? What do they have his kids in a basement somewhere? Does he have kitty porn on him? Like Yeah. What is it? Why did Bob go bad? And I have to look him in the eye and say, Bob just wanted to be liked. Yeah. Like, there is a a gene inside of congressmen. I think they if you look for a common denominator, they they like people and they want to be liked for the most part. And if and they're likable. If they're not likable, they it's hard to get elected. Okay. So this self selects for likable people, but likable people want to be liked. And they're not surrounded by their wives and children who usually give them plenty of like, right? When they're in DC, it's like, who am I gonna go to dinner with tonight? Well, I wanna eat food with somebody that likes me, right? So if you're not gonna eat alone, and you have to be liked, and you generally have to be liked to get elected to congress, you you better be liked. And and so it's literally, it's almost like kindergarten when somebody says, I won't be your friend anymore if you don't, you know, give me your lunch. Congressmen fall for that, you know, they're in their thirties I knew. Forties fifties and they fall for that. Speaker 1: How do you have it's interesting. You like people, I've asked around, you don't seem to have any real enemies in the congress. I don't even think APAC hates you, they just want you to obey, but they know it's not it doesn't seem personal. Speaker 0: Right. You don't Speaker 1: seem to be at personal war with anybody. I I I that's my take on it. Speaker 0: I have a mutation. Speaker 1: So you like people. Okay? Speaker 0: I love Speaker 1: Obviously, you're not some weird autist who doesn't care about other people. You like other people. I love people. I can tell. And your colleagues say that. But you also don't feel like you need to fit in Right. At the same time. Like, what is that? Speaker 0: It's a mutation. That chromosome, the like the liking people and likability chromosome usually has another gene on it right next to it, which is the need to be liked. And I'm missing the need to be liked gene. I don't know what happened. Like, I can go like on the CARES Act. Okay? This was under president Trump. The eleventh day to slow the spread of 15. Right? They said we're gonna pass a $2,200,000,000,000 package and you all just stay home. It's dangerous. Like, we'll just do it by unanimous consent. And it was 11PM, I'm sitting in my living room and and they send us this message and I'm like, WTF? Like this is the this is twice the size of the omnibus bill. Right? This is gonna cause massive inflation. The policies in it are gonna cause shortages, and if we don't show up to vote, we're sending a message to all 50 states that you don't have to show up to vote in this election. So it's like, we I gotta do I got in my car and I drove eight hours. I slept one hour in a rest stop because I knew I had to be there by 9AM. This was 03/27/2020. Actually, the twenty fifth is the day I got to congress to stop it. And I got there and I said it's not going by unanimous consent. And I was literally sleeping in my wife's SUV eating those peanut butter filled pretzels, like I had a big jug of those. Speaker 1: Those are good. Speaker 0: Yeah. For my three days of nourishment, I'm sitting in SUV eating that big tub of pretzels with peanut butter in the middle, like waiting just waiting for them to try to call it in session and sneak this bill past. And they're like, shit, Massey's gonna do it. So they they loaded up congressmen, you know, the airports were shut down for the most part. There were some planes coming from California, they only had two passengers and they were both congressmen. So they they roll them all back to congress. It takes them two days to assemble a quorum, because I like they went to the parliamentarian and they're like, is there any way around this? And he's like, nope, Massey's right. The constitution requires a quorum if one, you know, he didn't call me an asshole, but if one asshole just shows up, objects and says there's no quorum here. So they brought every back, I go to the floor, actually got a everybody was hating me. I mean, everybody. Did you know what it's like to be in a room of 434 people and they're all staring at you like there I had maybe 10 friends who were like looking at me like, that guy is dead. Like I've we've never seen Harry Carey like this. They were worried for me, but the rest of them hated me. They're they would come up to me and say, I I live with my mother, and when I go back home, you're gonna cause me to take COVID to her and she's gonna die and I'm blaming you for this. And I said Speaker 1: You said that to your face? Speaker 0: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, like, no, it wasn't just one. It was like, when he was done, there was a line of people. I just like stood there and they're all coming to hate on me. And I was like, but what about the guy that's going to the grocery store and bagging your groceries and carrying them out to the car? Does he live with his mother too? Like, what about the trucker who's out there driving and interacting with people in order to get the goods to where you need to be? What about the nurse who's going to work every single day taking care of people? Is she gonna kill her parents? Like, where why are you special? Like you're supposed to, you know, they they carved a hole in the side of a mountain in West Virginia for us in the case of emergency. Yes. That well, the sad but but realistic thing is, now they don't have a place for us, we're so useless. Right? They're just like, well, here's where we were gonna keep them if shit hit the fan. But now we we've realized they're like useless. We can declare war without them in the event of a nuclear strike, so you know, they're just a rounding error in the three branches we can operate with two. Speaker 1: Yes. I've noticed. Speaker 0: So anyways, these are the kind of people who are supposed to respond in an emergency, and they all wanted to stay home. They all hated me for for recognize our constitutional duty. And and Trump called me three times on the floor of the house while I was getting ready to make the motion to object. And I let it go to voicemail three times in a row. Which is probably not good, but I couldn't leave the microphone. Because I was asking people, would you make this motion if I go to the restroom? They're like, oh no. No. Not me. So I I sat there, I I finally they yielded time for debate, I go off the floor and called the White House switchboard back. And and you know, I didn't have his number, I just like, if you want a tour of the White House, you call the number I called. Right? And like the intern is like, oh, is this congressman Massey, I'm putting you through to Trump right now. And so he comes off and he goes, I'm coming at you like you've never seen. Never in your life before. Have you seen the way in which I will come at you? I'm more popular than you in Kentucky and you know it. I'm backing your primary opponent and you're gonna lose. Speaker 1: Oh, come on. Speaker 0: And I'm like, oh crap, I probably will lose. I mean, I had 95% popularity in among my republican electorate who I had to face in about eight weeks in my primary. And I had a well funded opponent and here now is Trump was mad at me. So he screamed at me for two or three minutes, I kept trying to talk and he just screamed louder, then he repeated it all. He goes, no. This is the second time you've done something like this. And they talked me out of it before, but not this time. And then, you're gonna lose. And he hangs up. And like, the thing is, like, I had he said he thought it was the second time. I'd done that like eight times since he was president. He just started realizing it's the same guy. The the time before that was on war with Iran. The Democrats were in the majority, and, you know, he had just vaporized Soleimani. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 0: And we were worried that he would attack Mainland Iran without a vote of congress. So the Democrats actually insincerely, there aren't too many anti war Democrats left. I've noticed. But they realized this was a chance to make a statement, so they put a bill on the floor saying Trump, he can't go to war with Iran without a vote of Congress, which is constitutionally obvious, so I had to vote for it, but I was only one of three Republicans to do it. So he remembered that time, but he didn't remember the fake Obamacare repeal, and some of the other things that I was kind of, you know, the turd in the punch bowl on. Speaker 1: Did did it change your views at all? Speaker 0: No. The the president tweeted that I was a third rate grandstander, and that like this is before I got back to my seat. Like, I go back from the speaker's lobby to go to my seat to get ready to make the motion and one of the congress was like, you better look at your phone, Massey. Look at your Twitter and I turn it on. He's like tweeting hard and heavy against He said I should be thrown out of the party. Then he the best one is, I'm chairman of the second amendment caucus. So his third tweet was, he's terrible on guns. I was like, what? Where did that come from? Have you seen my Christmas card picture? Great. Speaker 1: What's your Christmas card picture? Speaker 0: Well, it's a little infamous. Speaker 1: No. I I've actually seen it, but I Speaker 0: just Okay. Speaker 1: The benefit of those who have not. Speaker 0: So, you know, I got my family together for Christmas, and we got bluegrass instruments out. We play music together, and we took a Christmas card picture with bluegrass instruments. And I said, hey, wouldn't it be kinda neat if we just like change these all out for machine guns, and took a picture. And that was supposed to stay on my phone for eternity, but I'd had a couple medical margaritas one night. I don't do medical marijuana, but I had a few medical margaritas and I looked at that picture and I thought, well, that's pretty good picture. It'd be ashamed if nobody ever saw it and I tweeted it. No. I caught all kinds of hate for that. Speaker 1: The arch It's a great picture. Speaker 0: The archbishop of Canterbury condemned it. This is the head of the church of England condemned my tweet. I'm like, oh my gosh. Speaker 1: Are are you an Episcopalian? Speaker 0: I'm a Methodist. Speaker 1: Good. So you can ignore him. Yes. Yeah. He's a he's a disgrace. Speaker 0: So so anyways, I, you know, the press asked me as I'm we're talking about the need to be liked Gene. Right? If I had that, I would have been devastated that day. If I had needed to be liked, I couldn't have carried that through, and I walked out of that chamber, everybody's hating me in the chamber, Nancy Pelosi called me a dangerous nuisance, CNN called me the most hated person in D. C, John Kerry called me an asshole or something, and president Trump called me a third rate grandstander. This is all in the course of a few minutes. Right? I walk out of the chamber of the house and the reporters like swarm me, you know, like they do, and I'm just trying to run back to the SUV with the pretzels with peanut butter in them and get out of there. And the the press said, what do you have to say for yourself? Your own president just called you a third rate grandstander. And I paused for a second and I said, was offended. I'm at least second rate. Speaker 1: So So what happened to your relationship with Trump? Speaker 0: It you know, I think he respects people that stand up. Yep. Even if he I Speaker 1: think you're absolutely right. Disagrees with Yes. That's correct. Speaker 0: And two years later, he did endorse me. No way. Yep. Speaker 1: Do you get along with him okay now? Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, I did endorse Ron DeSantis, not out of spite or animosity, because we had already patched things up. Just because I served with Ron DeSantis for six years and he and I were really good friends. We talked about bills when he was in congress. He he entered he and I fought over who was gonna introduce the bill to eliminate congressional pensions. You know, and he won and I co sponsored it. Now, I'm the sponsor, now that he's a governor. But I knew he was a good person and he thinks things through and he was smart, so I I endorsed him. But, you know, because I have I call it natural immunity. I have Trump antibodies at this point. They may wear off at some point. I don't know. It's you Speaker 1: think if you did run for say, just pulling us out of a hat, but governor of Kentucky, do you think Trump would endorse you? Speaker 0: I don't know. He'd probably do some polling and see who was winning. Speaker 1: Fair. Fair. Totally fair. Speaker 0: I I wouldn't turn down an endorsement. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: So it's it's not so are you at war with anybody in the congress? Speaker 0: No. I get along with everybody. I mean and people try to use this against me. You know, when APAC was running those ads that say I always vote with AOC and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, you know. So, I introduced an amendment and forced to vote on eliminating the kill switch in automobiles that's mandated you. Yeah. Well, I was losing Republicans on that. I lost like 20 Republicans. So I knew I needed some Speaker 1: So just to be clear for the people who don't know what you're talking about. New in new vehicles, this has been the case for years, they can be turned off remotely by the authorities, which is like the most North Korean thing ever to happen. That's what you're talking about. Speaker 0: Yeah. By 2026, every new automobile sold has to be able to turn itself off if it doesn't like your driving. So, I'm like, how do you appeal this conviction at the roadside? Right? Maybe you swerved to miss a deer and pulled over for an ambulance and you got your kids in the car and Speaker 1: it stops. One vote for something that evil? I don't understand. Speaker 0: Because again, they know it's a that I'm right, but they're worried about for instance, mothers against drunk driving. Or they they don't have the bravery Wait. Speaker 1: Worse, we just let in millions of illegal aliens who are allowed to drunk drive. Right. And Biden has told us that drunk driving is not a big deal. It's not grounds for Deportion. Or deporting. Yeah. So who mothers against drunk driving, as far as I know, has said nothing about this, like, cares what they think? Speaker 0: I I know and but there may be, let's say, one constituent in your district who gets a hold of you and they lost a child to drunk driving, which is terrible. And they say, well, you know, you don't care about me if you vote for Massey's amendment. And you know, they make that personal phone call, that congressman doesn't have the fortitude to say, or knowledge to say, look, this technology can't work. I I really care about your child, I think drunk driving is a scourge, and I wanna fix it, but this is a false promise and it's only gonna increase the price of automobiles and give the government more control, so I'm gonna vote with Massey. They don't have the courage to say that. So long story short, I lost 20 Republicans. I needed some Democrats. So I went over to AOC, who I get along with just fine, don't hate me for saying that. I don't. And I said, AOC, they're running ads right now that say you always vote or that I always vote with you. Just once, could you vote with me? Could you vote for my kill switch amendment since they're running ads the other way? And she did. She voted to defund the automobile kill switch. Speaker 1: Good for her. So she ran it's it's interesting. I mean, obviously, I don't like her, but I think she's talented. She she is definitely talented. But she ran as a radical as someone from the outside, which I'm of course very sympathetic to. But she doesn't seem to be actually be that person. So like for example, on the foreign aid stuff, how often does she vote with you on Quite quite frequently, but I had Speaker 0: a a funny moment, you know, this 15 or 16 votes we had on Israel in Yeah. April. Well, the squad and I and I know this is gonna be used in the next ad against me, this clip from Tucker. But I was the only no sometimes. Sometimes the most of the squad voted with me, but I noticed AOC wasn't always there with me. So I went over to the squad on the democrat side of that. Speaker 1: Do they literally sit together? Speaker 0: They they hang out together. Yeah. They kinda it's really click ish. Even, you know, the freedom caucus sits together, the Texas delegation sits together, there are different clicks. The appropriators sit together. It's the the military guys, the intel guys sit together. You know, sometimes it's by state, sometimes it's by click. A lot of the congressional black caucus sits together. I can't get the second amendment caucus to sit together, that's my caucus. Speaker 1: They're too independent minded. Speaker 0: You're too independent. But so I go over to their Speaker 1: But this is just high school cafeteria. Speaker 0: It's high school cafeteria, that's what it is. And why would you again, they need to be liked. Right? They don't want to sit next to people they don't like, or who don't like them. So I go over I went over to the squad a few weeks ago, and I said, I told AOC for the squad, I said, we're gonna kick you out if you don't keep voting with this more consistently. What did she say? She laughed. She thought it was funny. I mean, she has a sense of humor. These people are humans. There are 435, I call them goldfish in the aquarium. You have to get 218 of them to pass a bill. So it doesn't benefit me to hate on any of them. Someday, you know, on some days they may vote with. Speaker 1: Well, they're also people. If you can help it, shouldn't hate people, period. Speaker 0: We've we've formed coalitions on the first amendment, on the fourth amendment, on war sometimes, like to eliminate cluster bombs, delivering cluster bombs. Even though the Democrats almost to a person, actually to a person, want to give Ukraine more aid, some of them are like, well, the cluster bombs, maybe we shouldn't do that. Okay? And so you can form coalitions, so I try to do that when I can. Speaker 1: But why aren't there anti war Democrats? Since it was the anti war party for like forty years. Speaker 0: I don't know. And then we've lost a lot of them on privacy and and free speech as well. I think with Russia, you asked this before, there's there's this element that I didn't answer. It's sort of a proxy against Trump for them now. They in their in their file folders in their brain, Trump and Russia are in the same file folder. Yes. Even though that's a false narrative that's been dispelled long ago, it's still in their same file folder. So when they see Ukraine is fighting Russia, they use that as a proxy for their hate for Trump, and so they'll they'll vote for that. And they did. They waved I don't know if you saw this, they were waving Ukrainian flags after Mike Johnson put the bill on the floor I saw. And every Democrat voted for it. This was premeditated. Somebody had to go buy, you know, 200 Ukrainian flags and hand them out, and I filmed it, which you're not supposed to do, but you're also not supposed to wave flags of other countries on the floor of the house. So I'm like, alright. I'm gonna expose this. So I filmed it and I put it on Twitter to show what like the humiliation that Mike Johnson brought upon us by bringing their the Democrat bill to the floor without any and it was leverage too, even if you're a Republican and you're okay with sending money to Ukraine. That's a leverage point. Get do something for our country and require that as a condition of doing whatever that is, but he gave up all the leverage. I put that video on Twitter. Three days later, the sergeant at arms tracks down one of my staffers in Kentucky, because we're no longer in session, and says he needs to delete that video from Twitter, or we're gonna take a fine out of his salary, out of his congressional salary. And so mister Stafford, he knew what I was gonna do, he told me what they had just said. I said, alright, I'm retweeting it. Did you? Oh, yeah. And it got like 8,000,000 views. It went from 4,000,000 to 8,000,000. And then, you know, sometimes you just gotta double down and the speaker had to announce on Twitter that I wouldn't be fined for that. Speaker 1: But there but no one was considering finding any member who waved the flag of a foreign nation on the floor of the house of representatives. Speaker 0: Right. And they were taking selfies of of them with their foreign flags too, and no none of them got a phone call. Only I got a phone call because I exposed the humiliation. It wasn't just a humiliation of those of us in congress, it was a humiliation of our country. I mean, it's one of the most corrupt countries in the world and they got everything they wanted for them and the democrats are waving the flag even though the Ukrainian flag even though they're in the majority and we just have to like sit there and and take that. It was it was horrible. Speaker 1: Do you think any I mean, the leader of Ukraine is not elected anymore. He his term has ended. He's not having a new election. He's the unelected maximum power. In some places, we call that a dictator. And yet, they're still hitting us with a democracy, pro democracy talking points. Do you think I mean, have they thought this through at all? Do they are they just lying? Like, what is that? Speaker 0: They're lying. Yeah. I mean, they know it. And the good news is some Republicans are waking up to it. Remember, when we started voting on these Ukraine resolutions, even, you know, as soon as the war started, I was the only no. There was like this open ended promise in a in a non binding resolution that said, well, give them whatever they need. And there were only like two other Republicans that joined me on this, but now we've got a majority of Republicans in congress who are saying, wait, this is they aren't using this money like we thought they were, and we're giving them money to fund pensions of retired politicians in Ukraine, who were most certainly corrupt, and we're paying their pensions with this money. But most Republicans don't support it. So that means that your speaker, the Republican speaker of the house, Mike Johnson, is working for the Democrats. Yeah. It's that simple. I mean, and and that's one of the reasons we went through with the motion to vacate. Paul Gosar and I cosponsored Marjorie's motion to vacate. There were ultimately 11 of us who voted for it. Speaker 1: Motion to vacate would be to fire him. Speaker 0: To fire speaker Johnson, just like they had done Kevin McCarthy. Although, I thought inappropriately and at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons, they did that to McCarthy. But here we had speaker Johnson who was doing all the things people were afraid McCarthy might do, they they pre convicted McCarthy for things they thought he would do. And here Mike Johnson came and did all these things, he put an omnibus on the floor, he passed the foreign intelligence surveillance act, re upped that without warrants, built the FBI a new building and gave Ukraine all this money. So what what happened, what Marjorie and I and Paul decided ultimately is we needed to expose the uni party, and never before have you had Democrats vote for a Republican speaker, and that's why we forced the question. Nancy Pelosi voted for him, Hakim Jeffries went on national TV and said, why would we want to get rid of him? He's given us everything we want. I mean, the the uni party has never been so exposed as it was when we called that motion to vacate. I know some people got mad at us, said we shouldn't have done it, but it's a long game, which we certainly hope that he doesn't become speaker next January, and hopefully people have seen with Nancy Pelosi rushing to speaker Johnson's aid, that he's not the speaker you want when Trump wins the White House and we keep the majority. Speaker 1: Do you think he will be? Speaker 0: A lot of this depends on what the people want, and if they can see it. Hopefully, also Trump sees it that Mike Johnson is gonna would be even worse than Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan put while he was still in the while we were still in the majority, Paul Ryan sent like a dozen CR's or omnibus bills to president Trump's desk because it didn't have any money for a wall in it. Like, he had no intention of ever funding a wall, Paul Ryan did. It you know, and so I think Mike Johnson is gonna be similarly the same way. He's basically working for the deep state at this point in the uni party. Speaker 1: How did that happen? Do you have any idea? Speaker 0: The the Paul Ryan bit or No. Well, Paul Speaker 1: Ryan is a Change. You know, is a sinister person, I happen to know, but also, you know, not just kind of not a genius and an ideologue at the same time, which is like a bad combination. Dumb ideologues are the scariest. But Mike Johnson seemed like kind of a moderately conservative, kind of sincere, decent guy. You know, maybe he would babysit your kids and do an okay job. Mhmm. Unlike Paul Ryan. And but he just and then he immediately just becomes a tool of CIA and Jake Sullivan and the Biden administration. Like, how did that happen so fast? Speaker 0: Well, one of the things he claims, which I don't believe is true, and I have reason to say this, is that he says he went in a skiff, like he's had some a 180 degree turns on some things, like for instance, whether you need a warrant to spy on Americans using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, seven zero two program. Well, he used to be on judiciary committee with me and Jim Jordan, trying to reform that, trying to get understood what it was. He knew completely what we were talking about. He's an attorney too, right? And he knows the constitution. He knows this is required, but he claims he spent time in a SCIF and he learned things. SCIF, that's a pure compartmentalized information facility or something. It's where we go, we have to leave our phones locked up, you know, no staff in there. He claims he spent time in SCIF and learned things that changed his mind. Here's the problem, Tucker, I was in SCIF with him. Like, we we had we had DNI, not just the the current DNI, but the former DNI, John Radcliffe, Trump's DNI. We had CIA, we had FBI, we even had a FISA judge in there, and we spent three and a half hours. It was a four hour meeting, and after three and a half hour, it's basically a psy op, where they're just trying to beat you down and and do the things, and I was like, this is ridiculous. You get you haven't given they didn't give us one example of any time ever since FISA was created, that getting a warrant would have kept them from solving or preventing an act of terrorism. They gave hypotheticals, but they had no specific Speaker 1: And I think FISA has been in place since 1978, since the seventies. Right. So almost fifty years. And they couldn't give you one example? Speaker 0: Not one example. Now, they also expanded it after 09/11 and to to do the the program to go against civilians, to spy on civilians. And and and actually that product came out of the judiciary committee. Here's another place where the speaker betrayed us. FISA seven zero two was created by John Conyers and Jim Sensenbrenner. Conyers was the chairman Oh yeah. And Sensenbrenner was the the ranking member. And what Mike Johnson said this year was, well, even though the judiciary committee created this and is responsible for overseeing it, I'm gonna let the intel committee bring the bill to the floor without warrants in it. It wasn't even their jurisdiction. They have jurisdiction over FISA as long as it's for the CIA, but not for the FBI. So, that was frustrating and but But shocking. It's it's shocking. It is shocking. So he said, you know Speaker 1: Like end of civil liberties level stuff. So Yes. How yes. But it's not like he learned new information, the skiff No. As you Speaker 0: were there. I was there. So what so that's that's a Right? Right? The fact that I was there. Right. That's telling people on your show that I was there for three and a half hours, and Mike John go ask Mike Johnson. He'll say, yep. He was there for three and a half hours. Speaker 1: So what is the truth? What do you think changed? Speaker 0: I think he's kind of a lost ball in tall weeds. I think he's in a position of power he never imagined he would get to at this point in his life. He's not done anything in private practice or political arena that's prepared him for this. Took the job with a very small staff. He didn't have people to put in all positions on the field, and he had to accept a lot of suggestions in areas he didn't know a whole lot about, although he gets no pass on FISA. Yes. He gets no pass on Ukraine, because he does, as you pointed out, he doesn't even know how many casualties have been incurred on the Ukrainian side. I mean, he needs the second person in line for president after Kamala Harris. This is this is scary to me. He's he's basically getting moved around. Speaker 1: It's create you said nothing he did in his life before this prepared him for it. But that itself may be kind of a more charitable explanation because Speaker 0: I'm trying to be charitable. Speaker 1: I mean, Speaker 0: I gotta go back to working Speaker 1: with prepared you for this. So just for those who don't know, you went to MIT, your high school girlfriend joined you at MIT, you married her whilst while she was still there. And then together, you started a company based on an a very sophisticated invention that you came up with, maybe the first of about 30 patents that you now have. You ran this company for a long time, then you moved back to Kentucky. And a lot of things happened, you end up running for congress. So, like, that's not the background. Speaker 0: Well, so nothing in the political arena, but in my private life, you know, I raised $32,000,000 of venture capital, and I swam with the sharks. Yeah. Like, the the I had lots of moral dilemmas in the course of creating that company. I could have taken money off the table and gone and done other things, but instead I felt the commitment to my staff and to other investors. I had investors who said, if you'll just shit can that guy you hired as president, we'll double our investment. And I'm like, no. He's my partner. I'm not like, he helped me get to this point. I'm not gonna abandon him. Good for you. And so, you know, I had experiences in life that and then also just put my hands in the dirt on my farm, Speaker 1: like So tell me about that. So you live tell us about how you live and where you live, because Speaker 0: I think it's one of Speaker 1: the most unusual things about you. Speaker 0: So I spent, you know, I grew up as a hillbilly in Eastern Kentucky. What county? Lewis County. Lewis County. Speaker 1: How many people in your town? Speaker 0: 13,000 people, 13,000 cattle. It's a huge landmass and it's a great county, but there's it's one of the 21 counties that I represent. It's actually the poorest county per capita income that I represent, but it's the one I grew up in. So it's very unlikely that the congressman for the district would come from the poorest county. So I grew up as a little nerd, I love taking stuff apart, because I was bored, there were no malls, you couldn't ride your bicycle to any, you know, store to of and if you did, you didn't have any money, So I had to find things to do at home, I took apart things, built things, entered science fairs, built robots, made it to the international science fair as a as a little, you know, hillbilly. Won an award from NASA there, and at at the age 15, like I won the high school level awards. And got into MIT, never visited the campus, didn't really have the money to go visit it, but I read about it. There was no internet, seemed like a good place. I got there, I'd I'd lived in a town of 1,900 people all my life, and I I was there for six hours in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I crossed Massachusetts Avenue, they had a crosswalk and a stoplight, know, never really seen two of those things together. I'd seen crosswalks and stoplights, but so I walked through the the crosswalk and a car honked, like that short little Boston, meep meep. And I thought, oh my gosh, I've been here six hours and already run into somebody from Kentucky. And I turned around and waved at the car as big as I could. Was it people from Kentucky? I don't think so. I think they had one finger up waving back. So and people are like, that's not a true story. I said, not only is it true, it took me a month to quit waving at cars that beeped. Like, it was just eighteen years of conditioning. Speaker 1: You thought beeping was, hey. Speaker 0: Hey there. I mean, that's what we thought that little thing in the middle of your steering wheel was for. If you saw somebody and they couldn't see you through the windshield, just toot the horn. Then you throw your hand up and wave and they roll down the window, oh, that's Bob. And if you didn't wave, I mean, you're a pariah. You were probably an axe murderer who was in our town, right? Or you were just an a hole. I wasn't so I didn't want to be either, so I waved at that car in Massachusetts, and and kept waving for about a month. But anyways, long story short, as you said, I invented a virtual reality device that lets you touch three-dimensional objects, started a company, raised venture capital, did that for ten years, moved to the live free or die state. New Hampshire. New Hampshire. My company was in Massachusetts, I couldn't move the center of gravity too far out of Cambridge. I got it up to one twenty eight on Woburn, and then I commuted 40 miles every day, so I could live in a state that let you have machine guns and old cars and you know, cool stuff. Redneck sports. The best. The best sports. So Why'd you move back to Kentucky? After ten years, you know, of of doing it, it was you know, we had three kids and we wanted to raise them like we were raised in Kentucky. And we wanted to be near their grandparents, like both my parents were still alive, both my wife's parents were still alive and you learn so much from your grandparents parents are really busy just, you know, trying to earn a living or whatever. If you're lucky enough to have a relationship with your grandparents, that's where I think the generational stuff carries on. Yes. And I had a great relationship with my grandparents. So we wanted our kids to live in that environment. And we came back, we bought the farm that my wife grew up on. We built a house off the grid. It runs on a wrecked model s Tesla battery. It's been running continuously for six and a half years. Speaker 1: So you built the like, who built the house? Speaker 0: I did. Like, I we had an ice storm and a lot of trees fell down. How how big is the property? It's 1,500 acres. And it's wooded? It's all almost all woods. Like, and it's too steep. I don't want you to think this is like valuable Iowa Speaker 1: No. No. No. No. I know the part of the state you're in. Speaker 0: Yeah. Pack your lunch if you're on the ridge and you fall off the ridge, because you're gonna be hungry by the time you get to the bottom. You're be grabbing like tree roots and stuff to keep from sliding. But it grows trees and some of it is flat and, you know, in the bottom. Speaker 1: But this is not plantation land. Speaker 0: No. These are haulers. Yeah. So in fact, interestingly enough, it's been a republican county since the civil war, even though all the counties around it have been democrat since the civil war. Speaker 1: Because the geography. Speaker 0: Because the geography. Yes. The topography did not allow for consolidation of farms. Right. So there was no scale at which slavery made sense. You could you basically, in your holler, you only had enough land that your family, if you had enough kids, could farm. Yes. And so that's the way people grew up. And by the way, it's kind of libertarian, you know, I'll do my thing in my holler, you do your thing in your holler. Speaker 1: That's right. Speaker 0: If you need some help, let me know. I'll come over and help you. Speaker 1: Southwest Virginia is like this. West Virginia is like this. Yeah. Because the topography. Speaker 0: Right. It's the reason West Virginia was republican and and seceded from Virginia. So by the way, half my family's from West Virginia and half my family's from Kentucky. My mammals, who's 97 right now, is still alive, her grandfather was union soldier. Amazing. Isn't that crazy? Speaker 1: From West Virginia. Speaker 0: From West Virginia. Yeah. She still lives in West Virginia. But like, we're not that far away from the civil war. No. I know. I know. You you can talk to people who were alive when people who fought in the civil war. Speaker 1: I I worked with a guy when I was at the newspaper in Arkansas. The guy I shared a desk with, Bob Salee from Texarkana, Arkansas. He said, I knew confederate veterans. It's in my lifetime. I knew a man who knew confederate veterans or civil war veterans. That's just absolutely crazy. Speaker 0: But my whole point of that was, she's a republican. She's been republicans, my mammal, since the civil war. And like nobody marries into our family if you're a democrat, you gotta go see mammal, and she'll either approve or disapprove. And she's been had pretty good luck at sniffing out Speaker 1: The liberals. Speaker 0: Theocrats. Yeah. The liberals. Speaker 1: So so you had an ice storm. There was an ice storm on your property. Yeah. How does that figure into your house? Speaker 0: So I already had a bulldozer, so I got a winch, so I could drag these trees out. I got a sawmill, cut these into timbers, built a timber frame house. Speaker 1: What what kind of wood? Speaker 0: It's 17 kinds of wood, because we did it was whatever fell down in the ice storm. We've got oak, yellow poplar, hickory, beech. So hardwood? Hardwood. Yep. And then, we wanted to be self sustaining. Speaker 1: Well, how did she know how to timber frame? Speaker 0: She's very I found a class on eBay for $500 in Tennessee, and I bought it now. And I drove to Tennessee and took a one week class and we built a little shed slash cabin and I'm and I called my wife from a pay phone and I said, I wanna do this. Like, instead of going to get a job, we had just ended like left our company after ten years of working there and we'd moved back to Kentucky. And I said, well, I'll just build a timber frame house. Speaker 1: Like full time? Speaker 0: Yes. Woke up every morning, had my coffee and started chiseling away or going up in the woods and dragging more trees out that had fallen down. Speaker 1: So you you built your house full time, like as a job, every day? Speaker 0: And this and this is what our kids saw too. Like the flooring for our kitchen came out of the creek, we call it a creek. What do mean Speaker 1: the flooring came out of the creek? Speaker 0: There there are rocks in the creek that are flat that they look like the stuff you buy at Lowe's that's fake and I'm like, oh, this is what they modeled the fake stuff after. We it's free. Let's just go pick it up. Now, if we had probably have we're paying ourselves about $3 an hour compared to if we just gone to, you know, one of the box stores and bought it in in terms of harvesting it, but our kids, I think, in addition to being with their grandparents learned a big lesson that wow, mom and dad are growing our food, they are collecting the materials for the house here from the environment, that you don't have to rely, you know, neighbors are good though, right? We actually sent them to public school, which was and we let them ride the bus. It was only three miles away, but we figured the bus ride was important too, because when you get to school, they sort of separate you. Speaker 1: Oh, Speaker 0: yeah. But you've got can be fifteen terrifying minutes on the bus where you interact with everybody. Right? I remember my son, he was like 10 years old. He traded some Yu Gi Oh cards on the bus, and for this like awesome, the best Yu Gi Oh card ever, and he showed it to us. It was a little plastic thing, and we're like, well, did you wanna take it out of plastic? No. No. He told me to leave it in here, and we take it out and it was a fake. And he was so mad. But it turns out his dad had sold me a leaky bulldozer and said there was no leaks in it. Like Speaker 1: It ran in the family. Speaker 0: The same kid who stiffed my son and stiffed me on this dozer. Speaker 1: So where I mean But you Speaker 0: learn these these are life lessons. Right? They didn't lead a sheltered life. And so we grew up, you know, they grew up there. Wait. What percent of the Speaker 1: timbers in the timber frame came from your property? Speaker 0: All of it. In fact, they never left the farm. Really? Speaker 1: So you milled it there? Speaker 0: Milled it there, chiseled it there, made the mortise and tenons and the dovetails. It was a lot of work. Speaker 1: Personally? Yes. How did you, you know, cutting a mortise and tenon, cutting a dovetail joint, these are having done it very difficult. How did Speaker 0: you learn to do that? I kept telling myself, look, farmers without calculators pulled this off two hundred years ago. And so surely, if I've got a computer and some, you know, electricity, I should be able to do this as well. Just dent of will. Speaker 1: But she'd been like a electric engineer, software programmer. Speaker 0: Right. Not a Nothing scale. Yeah. Not I mean, the the only thing I had built before that was a tree house. Right? And even that didn't get finished. Speaker 1: So but I mean, some of that stuff is very complex, like actually complex timber framing, some some of the joints are difficult to cut and the design itself is is complicated. Speaker 0: Yeah. You don't like you have to plan it all ahead. You don't like hold the timber up there like you would a two by 40. It's not balloon framing. Right. Yeah. Speaker 1: Totally right. Speaker 0: Or oh, that 45 needs to be a 42 degree angle. Let's, you know, saw off a little bit more. You can't do that while it's, you know, you're up in the middle of the air on scaffolding trying to get two pieces to fit together. It's actually it's a fun math problem, so I enjoyed it, but is there something honest about it? Because all the fasteners are wooden too. So it's one medium that you learn. There's no like bolts Speaker 1: So it's all pegs. Speaker 0: Nails, all pegs. And once you realize that there's Speaker 1: So there are no metal fasteners in the frame? Speaker 0: Correct. None. I mean, we had to nail the floor Speaker 1: to I got I got it. Speaker 0: And the walls Speaker 1: on it. Speaker 0: But the frame itself Speaker 1: The frame that'll metal fast. Structure. Speaker 0: And it's 46 feet tall. Speaker 1: It's 46 feet tall? Speaker 0: Yes. From the basement slab, which I timber frame the basement too. I still don't even know how to stick frame. Like, I'm like, well, I'm gonna build one house, I'm gonna learn one technology. Speaker 1: It's the framing that your house is Yeah. If you're watching this, it's stick frame. Speaker 0: It's stick frame. So I was like, well, let's build the basement timber frame too and the dormers, like if you paid a company to build timber frame, they would stick frame the dormers. Well, of course, Speaker 1: or or buy them and just bolt them on. Right. Speaker 0: Yeah. I I timber framed that and just like, let's just be pure the whole way and there's it's as an engineer, I thought, well, wanna build a house with timbers, I like how timbers look but Me too. But you know, we'll just bolt them together, we'll use iron brackets, that's the best Yeah. Way to do it. But in the course of this one week class, I came to realize, wow, if you just let go and make everything out of wood, it solves problems that you would create when you start using metal fasteners, like wood shrinks. Right? Yes. It take it takes like six or eight years for a big timber to fully dry out. So how do you deal with metal fasteners and shrinking wood? Well, the metal fasteners can rip out. But if you build your fasteners out of wood, like, it can all work. Speaker 1: It moves together. Speaker 0: And there's, you know, if you go to Germany, you know, there's homes that are four or 500 years Yes. Old to show that it can work. So Speaker 1: So all the timbers came from the property. What about the stone? There's a lot of stone in the house. Speaker 0: Yep. We we got some of it out of the creek, we dug some of it out of the ground, all of the stone is from the property. Speaker 1: How did you dig it out of the ground? What does that mean? You started a stone quarry on your on your own property? Speaker 0: In my front yard, it's now a pond. But I there was an old logging road and the erosion had exposed this layer of rock and I thought, well, that layer of rock must go pretty far. So I started digging using a backhoe. I started digging the dirt off of that layer of rock and I'm like, wow, there are lots of rocks here. And I just I almost giggled out loud when I shoved on that layer of rock with my backhoe and all these rocks started rolling out front of the blade and they looked like rocks you could buy at the store. You know, like, well why would I go buy them? Like I can just like shove three tons of them out of here in you know, a few minutes. And then I had people coming and visiting. Obviously, we looked like a bunch of weirdos building this timber frame house up on the hill and people would come up and they Speaker 1: Where were you living at this point? Speaker 0: We lived in a mobile home, like we just pulled in a mobile home and we I told my wife we'd only live in it for like six months. We end up two years in a 900 square foot mobile home with four kids. No way. It's But I mean, it's actually not that bad. You get to know your family really well. You can hear Speaker 1: It's like being on a boat. Speaker 0: Yeah. You try to go to the bathroom and if you're gone for more than five minutes, like, the wall between the kitchen and the bathroom is so thin. You're just enjoying private moment there on the throne, you know, trying to read a magazine about timber framing or something. Right? And you can hear the kids at the dinner table saying, where daddy go? Where daddy? Where's daddy? And then they had to start trying to find daddy. Anyways, it was a good comfy experience and now we actually kept the mobile home and we lease it to deer hunters. Really? Yeah. It's a double wide and it's so it's full of deer heads and bunk beds now and the hunters call it the lodge which we find amusing. My wife calls it the double lodge since it's a double wide. Speaker 1: Do you have a lot of deer on your land? Speaker 0: We have, yeah, trophy deer all over. What do you Speaker 1: charge to rent it just in case people are interested? Speaker 0: We're we're booked up. Speaker 1: Don't want any weird internet people in Right. Speaker 0: Yeah. We are booked up. Yes. Call ahead. Speaker 1: How long did it take you to finish this house? Speaker 0: It's not finished. I've been criticized, you know, in campaigns people try to use this against me. Some guy goes, he doesn't even have doors on all his rooms. He's some kind of weirdo. Great. Well, we haven't made that door yet. Speaker 1: Right? You're making the doors? Speaker 0: We have made a few of them. Yeah. We're kind of breaking down now and buying a few doors. Now that the kids are gone. Speaker 1: So this that was like your kids wait. So what what year did you start? How long has this process been? Speaker 0: So we started in 02/2003. So we're Speaker 1: Twenty one years? Speaker 0: Twenty one years. And we've been off the grid that long too. Again Speaker 1: Now, when you say off the grid, what Speaker 0: do you what do you mean? We're not connected to any public utility. Not electricity, not water, not sewer, not phone. The the house is totally disconnected from everything. Speaker 1: Did you build those systems yourself? Speaker 0: Yeah. Using a lot of it's off the shelf stuff, but some of it's improvised, field expedient. Speaker 1: So so like Speaker 0: battery, the car battery that runs the house. Well, let's just buy that out of a catalog, you go to a junkyard and say how much do you want for that wrecked model s and like, well, I'll sell you the battery for 15 Why Speaker 1: not why can't you just buy the battery separately? Speaker 0: They won't like, Tesla wouldn't sell me a Powerwall. I would I tried to buy one for years. Why? Because it has to be connected to the grid for some reason. Their business model involves that. So I was like, alright. Well, I'll get a battery. How much different can it be from the batteries in their car? So I drove to Lake Lanier, Georgia with a little trailer, landscaping trailer. The battery weighs I think 1,200 pounds, But here's the funny thing, it's considered hazardous material if you pull it on a trailer, but if it's in a car, it's just fine. So I I hurried up and got back to Kentucky with the trailer. I don't have a hazmat light. Speaker 1: So it was a wrecked Tesla Model s and you pulled the battery out of it. Speaker 0: Yeah. And what'd you do with it? Disassembled it. I paid $15,000 cash. But this is like, you know, I'm I this probably like fifteen or twenty years, hopefully, it'll last. And so I brought it home, took it apart. Actually, I made a YouTube video of this, and what's kind of funny is I had these big rubber gloves that a friend who had worked on power lines, you know, they were leftovers and he gave to me. And so, like in the YouTube video, I try to make sure like I'm using big rubber gloves and stuff and I did like this fast forward, you know, of the disassembly of the battery and I forgot like my two little boys are in there helping me and they don't have the gloves on. Speaker 1: They haven't earned the right to have gloves. Speaker 0: Don't don't put stuff on the internet. Like, I once I I have a Tesla model s, one of the very first ones made and I've got friends of coal license plates on it. Like in Kentucky, you can get Friends of Coal, it's a totally Speaker 1: c o a l. Speaker 0: C o a l. Yeah. Speaker 1: I'm Speaker 0: sorry. So because in Kentucky, that's if you plug into the grid, that's likely where your electricity is Speaker 1: I would think. Speaker 0: Yeah. So I'm driving this thing back from DC. This was when gas was, you know, getting close to $5 a gallon. It was over $4 a gallon, and I and I stopped in West Virginia to charge my Tesla at a supercharging station, it just to kind of troll people on the internet and I made sure to get a picture of my friends a coal license plate and I said I'm just charging up with coal here in West Virginia and within thirty seconds I knew I'd made a mistake because somebody had zoomed in on the picture and my tags were expired. And they started tagging the Kentucky State Police, my local sheriff, the the DMV in Like, they were trying to get me in trouble, and I'm like, there's no way to stop this now. And so they were relentless, and but then somebody realized they had been expired for eighteen months, That I'd actually made it a year without paying taxes, and was maybe likely to get out of a year of taxes. Speaker 1: Well, it's your win then. Speaker 0: Yeah. But in Kentucky, think they make you go back and pay the old taxes. Anyways, what I learned there is like, search everything in the picture before you put it on Speaker 1: the yes. And and others with zesty your personal lives than you have learned this the hard way. Speaker 0: Mine is not very zesty. No. It doesn't seem you've got enough to do. Tax evasion issue here. Right. Speaker 1: You don't have time to be too weird. So so you get the Tesla battery back to your off grid house Yeah. What do you have to do because it's not made for this, it's a car battery. Speaker 0: It's a car battery. It's made to run 400 volts. All of my existing system was made to run on 48 volts, but there were 16 modules each nominally 25 volts and I realized if you put two of those in series, you could make 50 volts. So I put eight sets of two in series and so I put eight parallel a paralleled eight sets of two in series, so I got 50 volts at a lot more amperage than what the Tesla car would normally draw. It was capable of doing that and Speaker 1: How hard is that to do? Speaker 0: Well, I mean, took a few days, but it's lasted for six and a half years. I wouldn't advise doing this at home, like Why? Put it in an outbuilding. I mean, if it catches fire, it's probably like Chernobyl, that mini series, like, don't look at the reactor. God cannot put out he created lithium ion, but he can't put the fire out if it starts. So I would not attach it to your house. Mine is like Speaker 1: it attached to your house? Speaker 0: Kind of. Yeah. It's like a basement room that's not under the house. Like, I don't wanna get into everything under my house right now. Okay. So my wife says our house is my science project and she's the mouse. And she doesn't mind that, but I keep rearranging the maze on the weekends when I come back from DC, and then she has to find the cheese while I'm in DC. But it's she's more like the astronaut, I think, in a rocket. No. Speaker 1: I think that's exactly Speaker 0: right. She's she's only It's the Speaker 1: same trust level required. Correct. Speaker 0: Yes. She trusts me while I'm in DC, and I trust her to fly the house while she's in Kentucky. Speaker 1: So what? She's also an MIT graduate so I assume she is suit like kind of understands some Speaker 0: of the stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Although, would like to have just one thing in the house where if something went wrong she could call somebody, but she can't. She's got to like call me and then I walk her through it. By the way, it's good like marriage security. It's just like She needs If we ever if we ever broke up or if let's say she put something in my coffee and I didn't wake up, you know, the next day, She'd have a hard time running the house. So Speaker 1: so you put these you put the nodules which is basically Modules. Separate batteries. Yeah. Right? Okay. Within that Speaker 0: Within the big battery. Speaker 1: Old battery. Speaker 0: Then I put a computer on it, a Raspberry Pi and I made a little graphic screen and the Raspberry Pi using Arduino talks to the CAN bus, which is a proprietary Tesla communication system. So I use the battery management system that's native to the Tesla battery modules. If there's a nerd listening to this, this this makes complete sense and they'll be like, oh, well, why wouldn't you do that? And everybody else is gonna be like, he's just b s ing. Speaker 1: So did you have to add new software to this to run it? Speaker 0: I had to write software from scratch. Yeah. But it's fun, like this is what I do. Look, I've been in congress for twelve years, my brain has atrophied to the size of a walnut. It actually to a raisin and it it expands to a walnut if I can go home and do these projects, and then I go back to DC and it's back down to the raisin. Speaker 1: I I believe that. I don't understand how these projects work, but I I know what brain atrophy looks like and I know that congress Speaker 0: induces it. It's not a worm, it just shrinks. Speaker 1: So how does it work? Like It works great. Speaker 0: We can run the air conditioner. Like for the first eleven years, we had lead acid batteries and they didn't work that great. You had to add water to them. Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. Speaker 0: They put off hydrogen gas, which is explosive. Speaker 1: Oh, I know. Speaker 0: They put off a sulfide gas that can kill you. Like, lead acids are batteries are bad and they're like over a 100 years old. But by the way, I love solar panels. Like, Republicans are like, they look at me like, you have solar panels? You have an electric car like, are you sure you're one of us? I'm like, well, the solar panels are rocks that make electricity. Like they are amazing things. They they take sunlight and turn it into something we can all use. So you could hate I tell republicans, you can hate the subsidies, you can hate the bailouts, you can hate the mandates, I hate all of those things as well. But don't hate solar panels. Right. Because it's actually given me given me and can give other people a license to be independent Speaker 1: from the Let's get specific about it. So you have this this Tesla battery that allows you to do everything a normal house can do. You can run air conditioning, you've got a dishwasher, you got washer dryer, I'm assuming all this. Speaker 0: Four deep freezers, refrigerator. Speaker 1: Four deep freezers? Speaker 0: Full of peaches, beef and chickens. Running continuously. Continuously. Speaker 1: So so your power draw is significant on all those appliances, obviously. Yeah. And the battery handles it fine. How much propane or how much diesel or would I assume you have a generator to recharge? Speaker 0: Backup generator occasionally in the winter. But I keep every time, you know Speaker 1: So so your solar panels recharge the battery? Speaker 0: Yeah. For nine months out of year, the backup generator doesn't run except for it's like test run Speaker 1: every Friday. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Speaker 0: When we bust out the machine guns, who's in the driveway? Oh, okay. Back down to Level 1, that's just the backup generator. Speaker 1: So your electricity is to I mean, as long as you know how to operate the system, which apparently only you do, but if you can do that, then you're just living a completely normal life Speaker 0: Correct. Speaker 1: With electricity. Speaker 0: Correct. Speaker 1: How do you do heat? How do you heat your house? Speaker 0: So, in one of the greenest ways possible. Like, I think the whole carbon thing is a scam. Of course, it's a scam. But if you do care about carbon neutrality, I wish we had more carbon, we need more c o two. Yeah. And at periods in Earth's history, we had more c o two and plant life was doing better, and we've seen plant life we've seen the coverage of green on the globe increase as c o two levels go up, crop production goes up as c o two levels go up. But if you did care about c o two, I'm using wood on my farm, like just trees that fall down. I'm not even going out and cutting a living tree, there's enough trees falling down Speaker 1: Deadfall. Speaker 0: Deadfall. That if I don't get to them, the termites do. That's right. And they they turn them into c o two and methane. But I can get to them and cut them up and bring them to my house and burn them in a wood gasifying boiler, which is super efficient. You by the way, once you start cutting wood for heat, efficiency, you're like, if you figure out a boiler is twice as efficient, you can cut half as much wood. Speaker 1: So wood can you because anyone who's made it this far in the interview is probably interested in wood gasification. Can you explain what that is? How is it different from a normal wood fired boiler or a wood stove? Speaker 0: Yeah. In a in a normal wood stove, you you put the wood in there, it can be green. You you light it on fire, you get it going and then you control the air that goes to it to keep it from getting too hot. And a lot of smoke comes out, especially when it's idling because it's an inefficient combustion process and it's at a relatively low temperature under, let's say, a thousand degrees. Right. But in a wood gasifying boiler, you get the fire started and it basically turns the wood into charcoal and drives the gases out of it into a secondary chamber that's ceramic because it's burning at over 1,500 degrees. So some of the stuff that wood How do you get wood to burn that hot? You just you deprive it of oxygen at first and and get it hot, and then you drive all the gases off and you put more oxygen in in that secondary chamber, and it it looks like it's burning gas, like it'll be a blue flame and then it'll turn into a yellow flame. It starts out actually Speaker 1: And this is just Oak Maple Beach, this is just conventional firewood. Speaker 0: I burn near wood, nearest wood to the house. Right? Speaker 1: Like Near wood? Yeah. I don't remember that. Near wood. Speaker 0: Yeah. Near wood. Nearest You burn softwood in You can, but the BT again, if you're doing this yourself Oh, Speaker 1: of course. Speaker 0: Care about efficiency. Like if you look at the old timers, they were the greenest people on the planet. Right? They didn't waste a thing and they figured out the most efficient way to do things, because it was minutes out of their lives. Yes. So you start figuring out how to be more efficient when you're trying to be self sustaining. So I've got on my Twitter bio, I used to say, it may still say this on there, greenest member of congress. That doesn't mean I just got there and I'm green. It Nobody I never got any of the fact checkers to come after me on that. Nobody wants to fact check me, because I probably am the greenest member of congress. Who's who is has self sustaining food, self sustaining without externalities. Right? Self sustaining power, self sustaining water. Speaker 1: So you heat with wood. How much wood do you burn? Would you say a season? The Speaker 0: size of this table, maybe four stacks of wood the size of this table. Speaker 1: So this is about a cord, so this is about a cord is four by four by eight, so this is like roughly that. So Yeah. Four cords a year. Speaker 0: Yep. Speaker 1: That's not much. That's impressive. How do you get hot water? Speaker 0: We've got three ways to make hot water. When our geothermal units running in the summertime, doing the air conditioning, it takes the heat out of the living room and puts it in the hot water tank. So we have free hot water from like May until September when the air conditioner is running. And then in the winter, when the boiler the wood boiler is running, that makes hot water. And then if there's ever not the air conditioner running or the boiler running, we have an on demand, this is where we cheat, on demand propane hot water heater that makes up the difference. Speaker 1: Amazing. But you could pretty easily set up a wood fired outdoor Speaker 0: You could. Yeah. But in in the summer, again, you get it for free from the air conditioning. I actually have a fourth way to make hot water too. So when we're not connected to the grid, a lot of people who have solar panels are connected to the grid Yes. And if they have extra power, they sell it back. Right. I'm always depressed when I have extra power, my solar panels just turn off. And I'm like, run around, turn on some lights, know, turn on something. I I don't wanna waste this free electricity. So I got extra hot water heater elements that run on DC, so that when the sun when our house is full, the first thing it does is it tries to charge the Tesla that's sitting in the garage. So the Tesla's sitting there at half full and a solid state breaker in my breaker box comes on and starts the Tesla charging. Then when the Tesla gets full and the house battery is full, I create hot water with the electricity. So I've got like a fourth way to make hot water. Hot water is almost as good as water. I mean, if you've ever gone without water, you know it's bad. Yeah. But going out without hot water is almost just as bad. Speaker 1: Yeah. I I have experience with that. Yes. It's Where do you get your water? Speaker 0: So I dug a well Speaker 1: and Dug not not drill. Speaker 0: Doug there's there are lots of old dug wells on our farm, so I knew it could work. Yeah. The the way they would do it, they would dig a big pit. Yes. They didn't dig it just straight down, they dug a big pit. And then they laid up stones in a circle, you know, that stones you see when you look in an old well, but then they backfilled the pit with stones. Yep. So that extra area becomes like a reservoir. And then they put dirt on top of that, so that, know, when a raccoon poops an extra well, it doesn't necessarily go right into the reservoir. So I did a very similar thing, but I hit bedrock and I borrowed a friend's jackhammer and spent a day inside of that hole with a jackhammer trying to get even deeper through the bedrock. I finally took my friend's jackhammer back and said, that's deep enough. Speaker 1: What was the jackhammer like? Speaker 0: I mean, that's the best argument for for public health care. Sorry. That exists. Because I don't I I have a new appreciation for somebody that's running a jackhammer. Those are those would wear your body out quickly. Like, really quickly? Speaker 1: Yeah. Did you lose a crown? Speaker 0: I did not lose a crown. Speaker 1: So does the does the well the dug well work? Speaker 0: It works. One month out of the year, we're just kinda short on water. Speaker 1: Yep. August. So Speaker 0: Yes. August. How'd you know that? Have you ever I haven't dug well. Lived in this situation? Speaker 1: Yes. I haven't dug well, so I'm aware Speaker 0: of that. But again, you can serve. Right? Speaker 1: Of course. Speaker 0: If you have if you're connected to city water and it seems what's on the other side is opaque to you, you just use as much as you want. And what happens is during those peak periods, that's when the utility company has to work extra hard. That's when the the price and the inefficiency goes way up, is in those peak periods when people aren't cutting back in response to the supply, because the the actual cost of producing it isn't known. When you're making it yourself, it's known. But I've argued that water and electricity, even when they come from especially when they come from utilities, should have variable pricing based on the instant the cost at that very instant to produce it. And then you could have appliances not mandated, but smart appliances. If you're rich, you don't care when the price of power goes up. Speaker 1: You don't know what it costs. Speaker 0: You don't know what it costs. If you're poor and you've got a little screen that says the power just went up, you'll go turn it off. Right? Speaker 1: A 100%. Speaker 0: You'll you'll say, well, we'll do the dishes tonight. Right? When it's cheaper. And if you're middle income, you'll probably eventually, the market will respond to this and automate these things. So that, you know, if you know the price of electricity, your appliance can know the price. I don't want utility company to know what you're doing with Speaker 1: Of course not. Speaker 0: But you can have these smart systems that make a lot more efficient use of our resources. Speaker 1: So because you're not connected to the grid, to any public utility at all. I mean, you're actually independent in a way that no one outside of Alaska I've ever met is. And it sounds like you're not giving up anything. You're not living in a Speaker 0: Not too much. There are some sacrifices. Like? Well, you know, if it's cloudy for a lot of days and hot, we may turn the thermostat up. Yeah. Just so we don't have to hear the backup generator run. That doesn't seem like a crazy sacrifice. There's some people would think the instant they had to turn the thermostat from 72 to 75 was be, screw it. I'm out of here. I'm going I'm going back to the grid. But it Speaker 1: means that the state kinda has no control over your land. Speaker 0: Correct. They or me. Or you. So when I go to DC, and they threaten me, or try to bribe me, it's like, I know once Friday comes, I'm gonna be back on my farm, and I don't need them. Like, it's not that I don't wanna do things for people. I help my neighbors and my neighbors help me and I I wanna, you know, do public service, but because I have this comfort level that I'm gonna go back home to this, I don't need the job. We're we're self sustaining. It gives you an extra dimension of independence, think, when you're in DC. Speaker 1: What about food? They can they starve you out? Speaker 0: I don't think so. Like, they can cut off my fish supply because we don't raise fish and we don't raise pork, but we raise chicken, you know, meat and eggs, we raise beef and we usually raise a pretty good garden and I have an orchard. Peach. Peaches, lots of peaches. My first peach is gonna be ripe here in a few weeks, and my last peach will be ripe in September. So I've planted 14 kinds of peach trees, so they get ripe different weeks, and they taste nothing like the cardboard peaches you buy at the supermarket. Speaker 1: So so you don't need to leap actually your form? Speaker 0: No. Are you trying to talk me out of like, I mean, this is a crisis I have some Speaker 1: weeks. I bet. Speaker 0: Oh, man. On Mondays, it's like, you know, you know you're gonna get hit with a two by four as soon as you, you know, walk in the door in DC. It's like Speaker 1: Is it weird that I mean, I guess what I'm struck by I don't live off grid, though I do have an off grid camp. But the amount of skills you need to build something like that is is really really striking. Like you actually have to know how to do things, complex things. I mean, timber framing is another level, but electrical, plumbing, masonry, agriculture, heavy equipment operation, like you can do all of that, obviously. So is it weird to be in a room with 434 people who can't do shit, who can't operate a micro I mean, they're, like, actually incapable, and maybe that's why they're in politics, so they can externalize their their self loathing. Is that weird? Speaker 0: I don't I really don't think about it that much. Speaker 1: Good. Speaker 0: I don't think about it. Where'd you pick up plumbing skills? So my rule is buy three books for everything. Because you can you can go to a hardware store and buy a book on plumbing, but I don't trust one book so you buy two books. And then if the two books disagree, what are you gonna do? Well, you gotta have a third book. So I've got three books on plumbing, three books on wiring, three books on septic systems, three three books on Speaker 1: You did your septic too. Speaker 0: Roofing. Yep. Three I get three books on everything. And you read them? And I read them. And then there's the code book which is like, you know, the the it's almost like international housing code thing that some municipalities have adopted and you have to abide by. I just look at that as like a suggestion manual. Like Speaker 1: So do you think now we're way in the weeds. I don't know if anyone's watching, but there are, like, four handyman carpenter general contractors are still in in this. But do you think that code, which really determines how people live in this country, the code, it's not up to code, Is it is it real? I mean, it we knowing what you do about all those different trades, does the code protect people actually? Speaker 0: It protects the contractors. Speaker 1: Well, I know that. Speaker 0: And so they help write it, the unions do. So for instance, the roofers union and the plumbers union, I think have conspired to put as many holes in your roof with plumbing as possible. Right? Because All the venting. Yeah. All the vents. Right? If you try to build a house to code, you'd you'd likely to have four or five perforations in your roof. Speaker 1: Well, I've noticed. Speaker 0: And and that keeps the roofers busy, like they're guaranteed to get a call every few years to fix that leak and it's also very expensive. It's it's fairly cheap to do roofing, but it's all the exceptions that cost money. And then if you're a plumber, that's one more thing. Speaker 1: Like all the flashing and all the Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. Speaker 1: Every time you have an aperture in a roof Yes. Like, that's a vulnerability. Speaker 0: So my my roof has no holes in it. Like, I've looked at this, I'm like, well, that's a good suggestion, but who who benefits if I believe So vent your Speaker 1: stove at the side of the building? Not the No. Speaker 0: No holes in my roof, no holes out the side. Have you seen that Opera House in I think it's Sydney Australia? Speaker 1: Yeah. Famous Opera House. Speaker 0: Is it Sydney or Melbourne? Speaker 1: Sydney. Okay. Sydney Opera House. Speaker 0: Yeah. There's no holes in that. There's bathrooms in there. How do they do it? They have the the one way admittance valves like you have under your kitchen counter. They have giant ones of those that work for the whole system, and they're not to code, but I think that's stupid because why would I wanna put a bunch of holes in my roof? Speaker 1: Well, I couldn't agree more. I'm interested in this topic, so Speaker 0: And but nobody else is now Speaker 1: Well, but for the the four people who are, I've always wondered that. Why with wood stoves, where I live, everyone has of wood stoves. And some of them, I have wood stoves that vent out the side of the building, like next to a window, and then do an l up. It's not quite as efficient, know, because you've got to turn in the run, but you don't have a hole in your roof and in a climate with like lots of snow for example, you don't want any holes in your roof. Right. But how do you vent your furnace, for example? Speaker 0: So that I just run-in a typical flue and it goes up in the chimney with my pizza oven flue, my wood cook stove flue, and my room for fireplace flue. So I have four flues through the chimney. Speaker 1: On the gable end? Speaker 0: No. They're in the middle of the house. I put the chimney in the middle of the house because it it's a big thermal mass and I wanted to smooth out the changes in temperature in the house. And so there's where I did accommodate one hole in the roof, is chimney. Cause if you put a big stone mass on the side of your house, there's no way to insulate it from the outside. So but by the way, let me say something like, I know there are some women watching this wondering like, I wanna live in a house like that, that sounds like a lot of fun. Talk to my wife first. Occasionally, have like some crisis that I have to solve and become MacGyver. So the first time I got elected to congress for instance, the day before I went to go get sworn in, the well pump failed. Oh. And I'm like, I can't leave my wife and four kids at home without water, and we have a very unique well pump. What do you mean by that? Well, I didn't buy the one at the hardware store, so you can go replace it. So I went down there. And what did you buy? It's like in a catalog somewhere, like the engineer in me found the best one. Okay. It's not the most common one, but I had to fix it. So what I did is, I found one of my drills, you know, like you drill holes with Yeah. And I took it down to the well, and I took the motor off the well pump, and I chucked the drill Yes. To the well head, and because it's not submersed, it's off the side in a pump house and I wired this, you know, had an outlet on it but I just wired it into the well pump wiring and the drill pumped water for our house Speaker 1: I believe that. Speaker 0: Long enough for me to go get sworn in. Speaker 1: I I've see I've seen that. I've seen drills run winches. Speaker 0: Yes. Well, I forgot it was there. Like, I did my congress thing for Speaker 1: You had it on continuously? Speaker 0: Yeah. And then the the the accumulator in the basement that controls the pressure would turn the drill off and on whenever it needed more water pressure. And so it ran continuously, I forgot about it. I just got busy and like a year later, a freaking water quit working again. Speaker 1: Because the Makita died? Right. Right. Speaker 0: It was actually a Milwaukee hole. It was? The whole hog, you know, one of those Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 0: Strikers. You know, I totally Speaker 1: do with the handle on the side. Yeah. Those are cool drills. So you last night, I just wanna end with this. Last night, we were having dinner and which was really one of the most interesting amusing dinners I've ever had. But you made reference to a story, but you we didn't get a you didn't get a chance to finish it because I interrupted you. But about putting new plumbing in a county jail, I think. Would you tell that story? Speaker 0: Yeah. So quickly, I got into politics because we were living off the grid and I read this little newspaper and it said they were gonna raise our taxes to fund this cronyism in the county, the conservation district, which was building stuff for themselves and not for other farmers. They wanted to tax other farmers to help their farm, right? It wasn't really about conserving. Farmers are the biggest, best conservationists there are, so let's don't punish them anymore. Okay. Good call. So I fought that tax, and then I've actually fought zoning in our county, they wanted to zone our county. I mean, zoning is to keep the smokestacks out of the cul de sacs. Right. Okay. My county didn't have any smokestacks and didn't have any cul de sacs, right? We did the the like the neighborhood in ET, you know, that movie where the kids ride bikes through the neighborhood. We didn't have neighborhoods like that. So we didn't need zoning, but somebody thought if we zoned the county that we would get prosperity because they saw all the prosperous counties had zoning. It's like, it's cargo cult. Speaker 1: Right? No. Totally. It's like saying, we should import some homeless because then we'll have banks. Right. Right. J. P. Morgan will move here because in Midtown, they're homeless. Speaker 0: Right. So that was I was fighting that and writing letters to the editor, and then finally, I quit fighting the guy who was doing all this. He's called the county judge executive in Kentucky, like the mayor of the county, and I decided to run against him. So And you've never been in politics? Never in my life. Also, was this guy named Rand Paul, who was inspiring, who was taking on the establishment. It was his first run for senate, and he decided to get involved in his race too. So just like with my house, I didn't go in partway, I went in all in. Okay? On politics one fall. Actually, one spring, because I had to win the primary, and Rand did too. And so, I actually did a fundraiser for Rand at my house, and when nobody wanted to do a fundraiser for Rand Paul, because he was running against the establishment. My house wasn't finished, we weren't even living in it yet. Sorry, little sidebar. Speaker 1: But you traipzed up from the double wide to Speaker 0: the Yes. We went to the double wide and we said for a $100, you can come to our pizza party. I did have the pizza oven working and So you built Speaker 1: the pizza oven before the bedrooms? Yes. Speaker 0: Priorities. That's right. Had to test it out, make sure it was inhabitable. So, the funny thing too, we didn't have doors on the bathrooms at the time, we had no doors. So we we did run to Lowes the day before Rand Paul came and put a door on the bathroom. Good call. Because I was like, look, this guy could be a senator someday, and he might need to go to the bathroom, and we need something more than a curtain here. So we call it the Rand Paul door on the bathroom. It's the one room that had a door from the very beginning. Anyways, we did by the way, also this was in January, and Rand is cheap as hell. He had a two wheel drive SUV. So I had to plow all my driveway so that he could get up there, and the problem is it's gravel. So I had to plow all my gravel off practically just to get so for what it cost to upgrade to the four wheel drive for Rand Paul, I like, my gravel cost way more than that. Yeah. It's Anyways, I went all in on politics, helped Rand get elected in his primary. I was on the ballot the same day in in 2010, the primary, 05/22/2010. Rand was on the ballot and I was on the ballot, but I was running for this little county executive seat trying to take a republican out, because he's trying to raise our taxes and bring in more government. And so, I won the election and it was like the most terrifying thing when they handed me the key to the courthouse. Like it's a small town, and if the janitor didn't show up to open the courthouse and start the boiler, which looked like the African queen, right? It was like you had to kick it and do all this stuff to get it started. The sheriff's office wouldn't be heated, the clerk's office wouldn't be heated, and my office wouldn't be heated if I couldn't get the African queen to start. So anyways, I was like the dog that caught the bus. And I promised I wouldn't raise taxes, And I was immediately confronted with all these problems that had accumulated over the years in our county government. And the jailer came to me, who's an elected official in Kentucky. His name's Chris. And he he got elected the same day I got elected. And he was all in on my, you know, let's reform this county. But he had some bad news for me. The by the way, the state government had sold the county government a bill of goods. They said, if you'll keep our state inmates, we'll pay you $32 a day and you'll make all kinds of money. And like, the county was a million dollars in debt because this did not work out. And I wasn't gonna spend another penny, you know, on this throwing good money after bad. And but we had thirty thirty state inmates who go out and pick up trash and you know, mow around the courthouse, and they they get real sweaty and the hot water heater had quit working at the jail. Oh. And so the the jailer, Chris comes to me and says, judge, they call me judge, even though I'm not an attorney, it was the county judge executive. He said, judge, I got some bad news. He said, what's that? He said, well, hot water heater quit working on the state inmate side, and I can't mix state inmates with local inmates, you know, you get murderers along with non support, you know, for Speaker 1: child Totally in cases. Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. It's like this, we can't have them taking showers together, it's not gonna work. And I said, okay, well, just buy another hot water heater. And he said, I tried that. I got a quote. We only had one licensed plumber in the county. And I said, what was the quote? He said, $12,000. I said, I mean, this is a small county. For a hot water heater? For a hot water, like all of our property taxes together were like $400,000. I mean, $12,000 for a hot I'm not paying $12,000 for a hot water heater. You tell that guy to get lost. And he said, what are you gonna do? I was like, I'll go buy one at at, you know, the hardware store or something. So I go look at this hot water heater to jail, it is not the kind you buy at the store. It's like a boiler almost and it's fairly involved, it's got like inch and a quarter copper lines, it's not plumbing. But I had plum I had three books on plumbing, right? I felt fairly confident. I said, well, if I could find one of these, I'll put it in myself. So I got on eBay and I looked for this model hot there was one buy it now for $5,500. And I'm like, I can save the county like $6,500. So I called an emergency meeting of our fiscal court, brought in the magistrates, noticed it to the newspaper, did it all legally, and made a motion to buy it now on eBay. And then I hit the button, I bought this hot water heater, they bring it in a tractor trailer. I didn't pay extra for the lift gate because I had inmates. The inmates take this thing out of the tractor trailer and we go in and we take the old hot water heater out. And there were three inmates in that closet, right, working on that hot water heater just demolishing everything. So they dragged that thing out of there, and I had to go in the closet with the inmates to put the new one in. I'm like, I only want one inmate in that closet with me. Fair. The the hot water heater needs plumbed. I don't need plumbed. So it's the the other two inmates that were smelling pretty rank at this point. I said, you guys go strip the old hot water heater. I want anything of value on that. Besides, you're in here for stripping copper and other things like Speaker 1: You're good at this. Speaker 0: We can do this judge. We know we know short irons bringing this, tins bringing this, copper will bring this, aluminum. They could quote every price at the salvage yard. Seriously? Yeah. So they I leave the two inmates stripping the old hot water heater and it had a computer on it and stuff and I'm installing the new hot water heater and I noticed for instance, even like the the plumber had left off this water trap that keeps gases from escaping like Yeah. A safety device. So I made sure to do it completely safe by the book or by the three books that I had and I come out of the closet. By the way, there's like 30 inmates. I had to walk by the rec room that had a piece of glass, and they could all watch me changing this hot water heater, and there's like 30 inmates, like in disbelief with their hands and faces pressed to the glass. Like, we have never seen a county judge executive get a callus on his hand or do anything. So I go back out and the inmate said, we got everything of value. There was this hulk of an old hot water heater sitting there. They had stripped the copper, they had stripped all of the useful iron off of it. And I said, guys, you left the most valuable thing on it. And they said, no judge, we've done this all our lives. We stripped these There's nothing on here that'll bring anything down at Livingston's. That was the junkyard place, recycling place. And I said, no, you left the most valuable thing. I said, come over here. And they walk over and I said, you see this lime green inspection sticker? Get it wet and peel it off and glue it on the new hot water heater. Remember, refused to hire the only licensed plumber in the county. They go, judge, you could go to jail for this. I said, I'll have a hot shower, won't Speaker 1: You actually did that? Speaker 0: I did that. And the only reason I'm telling you this publicly is this was how long was it? Like fifteen years ago or something? And no, fourteen years ago. I think the statute of limitations, you know, practicing it without a license as a plumber on a public building is probably expired. If not, the DOJ will be at my house as soon as this airs. But they have also since closed down the jail, like a few years later, they it was a good move. Speaker 1: Did they take the water heater with them? Speaker 0: I have, you know, it's on my bucket list. It may still be in there to So what are they using it for now? It's I think it's just vacant. Maybe they'll use it for drug rehab or something at some point, which would make more sense. Speaker 1: But did it work? Did your hot Oh, yeah. Speaker 0: It booted up, the computer came on, and everybody got I mean, 30 inmates just waiting to take a hot shower, and it worked and worked and worked until they shut the jail down. So Incredible. But anyways, that set the tone, like you could say, well, you're the executive of the county and you shouldn't be wasting your time on that. But I I mean, I had four hours of effort in it and I saved the county $6,500. And I'm like, no. This is worth my time. And it also shows the inmates like, okay, we're buying you dollar 50 lunches instead of the $2 lunches now, because we fired the crony who was doing the food system. Speaker 1: Totally. Speaker 0: And and they were less likely to complain when they saw that the judge himself was actually willing to change the hot water heater, but it also set the tone for the sheriff, and the county clerk, and everybody else who sees that, and it's like, man, he is a cheap bastard. It's like, I'm not gonna go ask him at the NES fiscal court meeting for anything. Speaker 1: Why don't you tell the story to APAC, and maybe they'll leave you alone? It's like, it's not personal. I'm not against you or your country. I just don't wanna spend more money. Speaker 0: By the way, I'm traveling. There would be some plumbing lobby against me next Speaker 1: week Sure. Speaker 0: After they see this. Speaker 1: Well, the one thing I know for a fact is that you will bravely stand up to the irate plumbing lobby. Speaker 0: I will. One one more story about lobbies. So I introduced this raw milk bill in congress and I, you know, food freedom empowers small farmers, it's more nutritious. I thought there was nothing to hate about it. Got 20 co sponsors, I put it in the hopper, I got my HR number and that day the milk lobby comes after me. Like they said there wouldn't be enough hospital rooms for all the children who were gonna die from raw milk if my bill passed. And this is kind of weird, you've got a lobby going after its own product, the milk lobby. So my wife saw all these things come up on her alerts on her phone and she texted me. She was worried about me and she says, OMG, I didn't realize the lactose lobby was this intolerant. Speaker 1: Oh, that's brilliant. You said that? That's pretty awesome. Thomas Massey. Thank you. Speaker 0: Hey. Thank you, Tucker. Speaker 1: Amazing. Thanks for watching. You can go to tuckercarlson.com for our entire library of everything we've done, and we hope you will.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 21, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Saved - June 21, 2025 at 8:10 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Worth a listen. I will not vote for the United States to get dragged into another regime change war. In fact, I will actively oppose it.

@OANN - One America News

ISRAEL WANTS REGIME CHANGE @MATTGAETZ RESPONDS https://t.co/JMEHacPMIu

Video Transcript AI Summary
The speaker believes Israel's recent attack on Iran is politically motivated, possibly due to Netanyahu's tenuous position in the Knesset. They argue that focusing on Iran's nuclear program is a distraction, as North Korea poses a greater nuclear threat to the U.S. The speaker highlights Israel's own uninspected nuclear program, suggesting hypocrisy in pursuing regime change in Iran over nuclear proliferation. They propose a deal where both Iran and Israel denuclearize, potentially brokered by Trump. Drawing parallels to the Iraq War, the speaker criticizes the lack of knowledge about Iran among those advocating for regime change, citing a senator's ignorance of Iran's population and ethnic makeup. They contrast the comfortable position of those promoting war with the sacrifices made by soldiers.
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Speaker 0: Israel didn't kick their regime change habit with Iraq or Libya or Syria, it seems. They need another fix. But, Matt, this isn't a regime change war. It's about Iran's nuclear program. I wish that were true, but it's not. Congresswoman Marjorie Marjorie Taylor Greene opined that maybe Netanyahu is so feisty about regime change in Iran because he was facing regime change in Israel. Speaker 1: It's not being reported enough that on Thursday, they held a vote in the Knesset, and it was only by two votes that Netanyahu won. If he had lost, they would have had another election in Israel, and the polling shows that he would lose if an election were to occur today. That vote happened last Thursday. And then Friday, Israel attacked attacked Iran. That's why the bombs are falling, and it seems very political. Speaker 0: Here's how you know this isn't about Iran's nuclear program. We aren't taking these steps to force denuclearization where the threat is higher and the leaders are even crazier. Take North Korea. North Korea's nuclear program is a far greater threat to The United States than Iran's. It is not even close. I know. I've had the briefings. I was on the House Armed Services Committee for eight years. Iran has neither the bomb, the delivery system, nor the reentry vehicle that you would need for any intercontinental ballistic missile to launch and reenter orbit. North Korea has all three. North Korea could launch a nuclear weapon at Mainland United States today. And we've probably got the ability to knock it out of the sky, but Iran can't even get their bird in the air. Iran's death to America chant isn't really my bag, obviously. But Kim in the Hermit Kingdom points to US cities like Los Angeles and San Diego and Seattle on maps, and he openly discusses wiping off major US population centers from existence. Of course, we aren't looking to drop a 100 bunker busters in the mountains of North Korea. President Trump took other brilliant diplomatic steps to constrain North Korea's hostilities. And the same could be done with Iran. But mad. Iran has kicked out IAEA inspectors. There could be portions of their nuclear program that are secret. A nuclear secret in The Middle East. How about it? If the world is interested in a secret nuclear program in The Middle East, there is a country that won't allow any international inspectors. Israel. Israel has a nuclear weapon. Did you know that? I do. They allow no inspections. They are fully secretive and clandestine about it, and the Americans are fully aware. You know what? I don't even blame Israel for this. If they wanna develop a nuclear weapon, if they had the blessing to do so secretly, I'm not in judgment of that. But to drag the world into a regime change war over secret nuclear weapons when you have secret nuclear weapons is a bit hypocritical. President Trump is the kind of guy who never gives up on a deal. Throughout his life, he's probably made deals and made lots of money on them even when others walked away or didn't see value in a transaction. So here's a deal. How about Iran and Israel both give up their secret nuclear weapon programs? If Trump got that deal, he wouldn't only get the Nobel Peace Prize, they'd probably name it the Trump Peace Prize forevermore. And it's not that crazy to think about Israel denuclearizing. Look at the model in South Africa. South Africa denuclearized right before they stopped being an apartheid state. Prominent voices in Israel and America have called for Trump to recognize Israel's sovereignty over Judea And Samaria, which some people call the West Bank. If that happens, Israel will have to let the five to 6,000,000 people who live there vote, and they don't wanna do that. I'm not calling Israel an apartheid state right now. I don't think they are. But if they are ruling the West Bank, as the neocons would suggest, then the South Africa model for denuclearization is not totally off base. There's a certain bravado at the beginning of a Middle East regime change war. There's enthusiasm, bold predictions of swift victory, and usually a total misunderstanding of what happens next. And the leading voice championing regime change wars for decades has been Fox News. Speaker 2: We must do the right thing. Saddam is evil and a threat to the world. He must go. We should have just taken 1441 and rammed it down Saddam's throat. It is dangerous to allow an evil dictator to remain in power. Now if you want a chance that Saddam would never use those deadly weapons, that is your right in a free society and I respect that right. But I don't want a chance that. Saddam Hussein is the largest army in the Middle East. Alright? He has developed these weapons for no purpose. He doesn't need them defensively. Alright? He doesn't need them at all. He's used them as you know. Alright? And he's invaded two other countries. But this isn't enough for you to have him removed. You need to think you're dead wrong. I don't think that there's any reason on this earth that that man should remain in power. In the end, Saddam will be removed from power, and the world will be a better place. Speaker 3: Tragically, will lose American lives, but it will be brief. We're gonna find out massive evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Speaker 4: I am confident that all those things that you predict are going to come true, and a lot of people that have been laying out the case against us are gonna be very embarrassed. Speaker 5: Iraqi regime did not and has not disarmed. Saddam Hussein is deemed by the White House a threat to American national security, a brutal, murderous dictator, and a menace to the world. It is the hope of the administration and the goal of the war planners that disarmament and regime change be accomplished as swiftly as practical. Some number of our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters will give their lives for the cause of freedom. Speaker 6: Things that we haven't seen in the past, very accurate weapons, very lethal. The Moab is a daisy cutter on steroids, and Iraq is not prepared for what's gonna be thrown at them. Speaker 0: Oh, Iraq wasn't prepared. Daisy cutter? This is how easily the so called foreign policy experts believed we would carve our way through Iraq. I saw how many of our bravest patriots were pushing up daisies as a consequence of that war. I went to their funerals. I visited their gravesites. I saw the true cost of a flawed regime change war in The Middle East. The problem is we had no plan to get out. Iraq cost America $3,000,000,000,000, and this distraction and disaster aided in both the rise of China and ISIS. Whoever was telling you that we had the ability to topple a regime in Iraq and then come out with something better was either one, lying to you or, two, so wholly ignorant about the country they were invading that their lack of knowledge or curiosity or understanding led to blood and terrorism and chaos. So as we approach the 2025 vintage of regime change wars in Iran, I wonder if those now cheerleading attacks on Iran know anything about the country they wanna topple. Speaker 7: How many people live in Iran, by the way? Speaker 8: I I don't know the population. Speaker 7: At all? Speaker 8: No. I don't know the population. Speaker 7: You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple? How Speaker 8: many people live in Iran? 92,000,000. Okay. Yeah. How Speaker 7: could you not know that? Speaker 8: I I don't sit around memorizing population tables. Speaker 7: Well, it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government. Speaker 8: Why is it relevant whether it's Well, because 90,000,000 or 80,000,000 or a 100,000,000? Why is that relevant? Speaker 7: If you don't know anything about the country Speaker 8: I didn't say I don't know anything about Speaker 7: the Okay. What's the ethnic mix of Iran? Speaker 8: They are Persians and predominantly Okay. Speaker 7: No, no. Don't know anything about Iran. So Okay. I'm not Speaker 8: the the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran. A senator Speaker 7: who's calling to overthrow the government. You're the one who knows anything about the country. Speaker 0: It's easy to sit in a senator's office or a perch in the Pentagon and send out tweets, press releases, and blustered statements about war. Nobody is shooting missiles at you in a Fox News studio. People barely even shoot divergent opinions at you in that myopathy. That's the comfortable political move in the short term, to support regime change wars. But that comfort is not shared by those who have to go fight in these wars and die in them, and many will.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 21, 2025 at 1:34 AM
Saved - June 21, 2025 at 1:40 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Dose of reality: Congress is spending, printing, and borrowing so much that the Fed has lost its ability to “set rates.” Banks and foreign governments who buy our 10 year U.S. treasuries are demanding more than 4.5% return. BBB makes it worse. Would be a great time to #EndTheFed https://t.co/5G8ZUIsn6d

RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 20, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Saved - June 21, 2025 at 5:58 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Over 100,000 votes. Here are the final results: 90% said stay out of both wars. I agree! https://t.co/f0rxYZTstq

RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 14, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Saved - June 15, 2025 at 4:37 AM
reSee.it AI Summary
I questioned whether the IDF posted an old video, claiming it showed recent missile launches. I shared a link to the video, which was actually from eight months ago, and highlighted the IDF's statement about Iran's missile attacks. I emphasized that even official sources can spread misinformation during conflicts, urging caution in believing everything seen in wartime. Lastly, I noted that the IDF received a community note for this issue, appreciating the platform's efforts to address misinformation.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Did IDF post video from 8 months ago and claim it depicts missiles launched last night? https://t.co/Z3KmgNNvK8

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Link to 8 month old video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/u9-deZZhbIM IDF post 👇

@IDF - Israel Defense Forces

⚠️RAW FOOTAGE: Iran launched multiple ballistic missiles toward Israel in the past hours. The IDF cannot, and will not, allow Iran to attack our civilians. https://t.co/IrDK05uErm

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Before a jOuRnALiSm writes a story that I’m promoting conspiracy theories, my point is that even official government outlets can sometimes print fake news in the fog of war. Don’t believe everything you see during war, because truth is the first casualty. Try to verify.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Last post in this thread. IDF finally got the community note. X is pretty good for policing this stuff. https://t.co/K9WvRJFTHK

RepThomasMassie
Posted - June 12, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Saved - June 13, 2025 at 3:34 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Incredibly petty & shortsighted of Trump’s staff to exclude Republicans from the annual White House picnic while inviting Pelosi and every Democrat. I always give my few tickets to my staff and their kids, but apparently this year my tickets have been withheld as well. Low class.

@EricLDaugh - Eric Daugherty

JUST IN - SENATOR RAND PAUL: "I've just been told that I've been uninvited from the [White House] picnic...every Democrat will be invited, every Republican invited, but I will be the only one disallowed. I just find this incredibly petty." https://t.co/rXTIDuXIeq

Video Transcript AI Summary
A senator reports being uninvited from the White House picnic, along with his family, including his grandson. He believes he is the first senator to ever be uninvited. He calls the action petty and immature, especially since he claims to have always been polite to the president, despite disagreeing on policy. He alleges the White House is running a paid influencer campaign against him on Twitter and offered people money to attack him online. He believes this is because they are afraid of his arguments about the debt. He says he would consider voting for the bill if the debt ceiling were removed. He notes that previous administrations, including Obama and Trump, never disinvited him from White House events. He expresses disappointment and questions the character of those involved, mentioning some casually discuss suspending habeas corpus. He says his family supports Trump and his grandson has a "Make America Great Again" hat.
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Speaker 0: From my office, and, you know, it's kind of a great time of the year in the summer. My family comes up. My son and daughter-in-law and grandson are coming up because we were going to the White House picnic, but I've just been told that I've been uninvited from the picnic. I think I'm the first senator in the history of The United States to be uninvited to the White House picnic. The White House is owned by the taxpayers. We all are members of it. Every Democrat will be invited. Every Republican will be invited, but I will be the only one disallowed to come on the grounds of the White House. I just find this incredibly petty. I mean, I have been, I think, nothing but polite to the president. I have been a intellectual opponent, a public policy opponent, and he's chosen now to uninvite me from the picnic and to say my grandson can't come to the picnic. I just just the level of, immaturity is beyond words. I just I you know, I been here long enough that if anybody has ever followed me, I've been a critic of Obama. I've been a critic of Biden. I've been a critic of the previous Trump. But always in a, I think, a reasonable fashion, a long policy. And so they've decided they they wanted to declare war on my family and and exclude us from the White House. And I just think it's incredibly petty, and I hope someone will ask them some questions about how they decided to to sink to this depth. What was the explanation given to you? No explanation. We're just not welcome. But you have to get a ticket, and we've always gotten tickets. I mean, I've been to 10 White House picnics. There's, like, Easter egg rolls. There's picnics. This is for for congress. And I think what's particularly galling about it is I don't know if this came from the president on down. Let's hope not. But if not, it's coming from his petty staffers who have been running a a sort of a paid influencer campaign against me for two weeks on Twitter. If you look at my Twitter, it's just gobs and gobs of these people. We know they're being paid because the White House, someone has told us the White House called them from the White House and offered them money to attack me online. So we have that, and now we're uninvited to the picnic. And it's like, I don't know. It's just incredibly petty, it shows that look. I'm arguing from a true belief and worry that our country is mired in debt and getting worse, and they choose to react by uninviting my my my grandson to the picnic. I don't know. I just think it it really makes me lose a lot of respect I once had for Donald Trump. Speaker 1: You were already a no on the bill because of the debt limit increase that was included in it. But, hypothetically, they could change that, get you you to a yes. Does this make you less likely to get to yes? Speaker 0: I mean Well, when they they tell you your grandson can't come to a picnic at the White House that all congress is allowed to come to, I don't know. Just so such a pettiest. But they've shown over the last week they don't care about my vote at all because I've told them I I can and would vote for the bill if the debt ceiling were taken off of it. So conceivably, there might be some situation in which they needed my vote. Instead, they have decided to try to attack my character. They've misdirected people's things. He's a democrat. He's for open borders. And all this craziness online because I think I'm having some effect with the argument on the debt. Having effect that we have a $2,000,000,000,000 deficit this year. They like to blame it on Democrats, but guess what? The spending levels right now are Republican spending levels. If they vote to raise the debt ceiling 5,000,000,000,000, the debt will be the responsibility of Republicans. And so how do they choose to respond? They're they're afraid of what I'm saying, so they think they're going to punish me. I can't go to the picnic as if somehow that's going to make me more conciliatory. So it it's silly in a way, but it's also just really sad that this is what it's come to. But petty vindictiveness like this, I don't know. It makes you it makes you wonder about the quality of people you're dealing with. How much of your family was disinflicted? Speaker 1: How many Speaker 2: people were supposed to come? Speaker 0: My son and, daughter-in and my, grandson are coming up on a flight, and they would be here in the morning, and then we'd go there tomorrow afternoon. And my wife and I, we've been we probably have been every year. President Obama didn't disinvite us. The former president Trump didn't disinvite us. Biden didn't disinvite us. And we always did this. You know, you'll hear people around town say, well, I'm not going to the Christmas party because it's president Obama's White House. It's our White House. It's the Americans White House. We all pay for it, and we've always gone to the Christmas parties, whether it was a Republican or a Democrat. We've gone to the egg roll. We got we like this stuff. We like going to celebrate stuff in our nation's capital with our family. And I don't know. It just I think a a really sad day that this is the level of warfare they've they've stooped to, but it's also not very effective. It probably has the opposite result. You know, it doesn't make me have a real warm, fuzzy feeling for the White House that they're telling my my family can't come to the White House. So I don't know. I I just, disappointed more than anything. What did you say about Trump's character in your opinion? Well, who knows if it came from him? It could be from lower level staff members. But, these are people that shouldn't be working over there. But, I mean, you have people that are basically going around casually talking about getting rid of habeas corpus. Habeas corpus is when, you know, a tyrant throws someone in jail. They can plead to a lawyer who says, show me the body. You have to prove why someone's put in jail. It's one of most fundamental rights we have. And the same people that are directing this campaign are the same people that casually would throw out parts of the constitution and suspend habeas corpus. So I think what it tells that they don't like hearing me say stuff like that. And so they wanna quiet me down, and it hasn't worked. And so they're going to try to attack me. They're going to try to destroy me in other ways and then do petty little things like social occasions or whatever. But, I you know, it it probably will not work. It probably will not make me, cow down or or bend over. You're talking about Steven Miller? Do you think Steven Miller uninvited you from the White House? I don't know. I think that it's some somebody acting in a very petty way. And if that's the truth, I'm a big boy, Speaker 2: and we can go have Speaker 0: a picnic in another park. You know, we can go to the mall. But it's just really kind of sad that this is where we are and, that they think that this is somehow in their prerogative to sort of I mean, literally, every Democrat is invited. Every Republican is invited. And to to say that my family is no longer welcome. Kinda sad, actually. My my grandson has a make America great hat. My my son and daughter-in-law, they like Donald Trump. I like Donald Trump. But when they wanna act this way, it's where they begin to lose a lot of America who just wonders why does everything have to descend to this level? Why can't anything be more eyebrow and more of a intellectual discussion where we have a disagreement, but it doesn't have to descend to this? Speaker 2: Do you think Steven Mueller should be working the White House? Speaker 0: I'm just gonna leave it at that. Speaker 3: How did he let you know about Speaker 0: your Well, we just tried to get our tickets, they will send you're not a guy. Speaker 1: And how old is your grandson? Speaker 0: He will he's almost months old. Speaker 3: Okay. So a little bit. Speaker 1: Yeah. But Speaker 0: he has Speaker 2: a Yeah. Speaker 0: We may bring him tomorrow with his make America bad ass. Speaker 4: And can you just to answer the other question about the president, the character of Speaker 1: it's not the president. The white husband's
RepThomasMassie
Posted - March 17, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Saved - March 18, 2025 at 1:47 AM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

📣 Constitutional PSA: To strike Iran requires a vote of Congress because it’s an Act of War.

RepThomasMassie
Posted - March 14, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Saved - March 14, 2025 at 11:47 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

62 to 38 in the Senate. As I predicted 3 days ago, senate democrats carried this across the finish line because it’s basically a continuation of the Schumer-Biden-Johnson 2024 omnibus. 10 senate democrats voted yes and 1 senate republican voted no (Rand Paul!)

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

The low down on this CR. It’s a fake fight here in the House that will become obvious when the Senate Democrats vote for this stinker. https://t.co/MPD9quy2aN

Video Transcript AI Summary
Congressman Massey claims the House's current CR fight is fake, alleging Speaker Johnson made a deal with Senate Democrats and Hakeem Jeffries for its passage after Republicans leave town. Massey questions why they'd leave if its Senate passage was uncertain, and says Democrats have a retreat scheduled. He says Johnson is circumventing a prior agreement for a 1% spending cut on CRs past April 30, calling it disingenuous. Massey says he's only voted for CRs with substantial cuts, like an 8% cut he supported under McCarthy that didn't pass. He advocates for twelve separate bills instead of CRs. Massey argues this CR extends Biden's spending levels and criticizes the repeated delays in addressing spending. He urges honoring the 1% cut and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. He concludes he will vote no.
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Speaker 0: Hi. Congressman Massey here. I thought you'd like to know about the fake fight that's going on in the House of Representatives right now over this CR. They're trying to pitch it as a conservative CR versus, liberal Democrats, and even the Democrats are going along in the house. But let me tell you why that's a fake fight. They're they plan to pass it with all Republicans here in the house. But after we leave town, the Democrats are gonna vote for it in the senate. That's right. They're gonna need about eight democrat senators to vote for this thing over in the senate. That means that this deal has already been cut, that Mike Johnson has cut a deal with the senate senate democrats, senate leadership, and even Hakeem Jeffries. He's in on this so that they can pitch their fake fight here in the house. Now how do I why am I so certain this is gonna pass in the senate when it gets over there with eight Democrats or however many Democrats they need? Well, Mike Johnson is sending us home a day early. We're gonna vote on this thing and skip town. If you thought there was really a threat of them not passing it in the senate, why would you leave town? The other thing that's going on is the Democrats have a retreat, an off-site retreat, where they're gonna get together and party and have, you know, guest speakers and stuff. And that starts tomorrow and runs through Thursday and Friday. Now you think they're not gonna let this thing pass. What would happen if, let's say, the Freedom Caucus decided to take the conservative stance on this CR and oppose it? Well, they would be about 30 or 40 votes short here in the house, the Republicans would. But Hakim Jeffries wouldn't be able to pretend along with Mike Johnson in this fake fight that this is conservative versus liberal battle in the house, and he would just hand over at least 40 Democrats. And once you get the 40 Democrats, it'd probably be a whole lot more Democrats. That's what's going on. It's all a fake fight. You're gonna find this out when it goes over to the senate, and you have Democrats in the senate voting for it. Now here's the other thing a lot of people aren't telling you about this bill. In the FRA, stands for fiscal responsibility act, I'm not saying it was that responsible, but in the FRA that passed a couple years ago under Kevin McCarthy, the deal that was cut between myself and others on the rules committee was that if you will guarantee a 1% cut in spending on any CR that goes past April 30 and put that into law, use the sequester language and put that into law, then we would raise the debt limit or suspend the debt limit for a period of time. I voted for this because a 1% cut seemed like a wonderful thing if they would go and do a CR for a full year, which seemed like almost a certainty at some point in the next two years. Well, here we are under Mike Johnson, and we've got the the one year CR that they're gonna do. It's actually a six month CR because we're already six months into this, and it's gonna go past April 30. It should trigger the sequester. But guess what? Mike Johnson's folks and lawyers have said, we're just gonna ignore that. We're gonna treat this continuing resolution as 12 appropriations bills or an omnibus for the purposes of this sequester because it goes all the way to September 30. In other words, they're saying this really isn't a CR for the purposes of that deal we cut two years ago. We're gonna call this basically an omnibus in CR clothing so we don't have to follow the law, the agreement that we did before. Now that's pretty disingenuous if you ask me. It's even more disingenuous to try to say that, oh, two years ago, Massey was fiscally irresponsible because he voted to raise the debt limit. No. We got a deal there, and then Mike Johnson has broken the deal because he's not being conservative. I mean, this was this was obvious, as obvious as that Capitol Dome back there behind me and the blue sky. So what would I do? What's a CR I could vote for? Because people have said, oh, Massey voted for CRs before in the past. Well, actually, I've never voted for a CR that became law because they were too conservative. I voted for a CR under McCarthy that cut everything in discretionary spending 8%. That's an 8% cut. I mean, I'm a fan of the penny plan, but 8% is huge. I think that CR also had some border security package on it as well, but I'm not a big fan of sticking things together. The reason I voted for that CR is it had an 8% cut. It never went into law. So but if you wanted me to vote for a CR, that's the kind of CR I could vote for if you're gonna cut everything 8%, if you're gonna be serious about it, but they're not gonna be serious about it. Really, what we should be doing is what I've said all along. I've been here twelve years. We should be doing 12 separate bills. That's kind of plain as day if you ask me. And that way, there's no threat of a shutdown. The reality is that the Democrats and Republicans love to have the threat of a shutdown. They can get conservatives for vote for liberal things if there's a shutdown looming, especially when you have a president who says, oh, we don't wanna shut down under my watch. By the way, this is not Trump's agenda. This is Biden's spending agenda. This is the CR extends Biden spending levels until the end of the year. The Biden spending levels that he enjoyed for the last fifteen months of his presidency will now be locked in until September 30. Remember in September, you can go back and find a video, September 2024, of me in the rules committee saying that what's gonna happen if we do a CR in September is it's gonna go to December. And then because what they said then was, oh, we gotta go after the election. We don't wanna lose the majority, so we'll have this fight after November, after the election. Well, we got to after the election. They and we were in December. It was time to do the spending bills again. They said, nope. We don't wanna fight right now. We gotta we actually won the senate, we won the White House. So we'll have the high ground. And they thought about doing the CR until January, and they said, no. Let's give Trump and the new congress time to get their legs underneath of them, and let's go all the way to March, March fourteenth. That'll be this Friday. They said that'll give us time to implement the Trump agenda. But here we are on March 14. Remember, the first excuse was wait till after the election. The second excuse was wait until everybody's sworn in. And now the excuse now for doing a CR is, oh, we don't have time. We don't have time to do the right thing. We don't want the fight now. We'll do a fight in September of twenty twenty five. Well, guess what, folks? The closer you get to the next election, the less spine these people have. And if you think they have little spine now, the spine will be nonexistent. I don't see the fight coming. I hope there is a fight to cut spending. I just don't see it. And we're our own worst enemy here in the Republican Party. So what should you do? Do a cross the board cut. You should honor the 1% cut that that's in law that Mike Johnson is going around. He's violating at least the spirit of the law and maybe even the letter of the law by ignoring the one percent cut. And we should also lock in the Doge cuts. Why are we gonna fund all of the waste, fraud, and abuse that Doge found? Why are we gonna cut, copy, paste that budget? I thought we were gonna get rid of that stuff. Well, it seems like we're not. So the vote's gonna happen here pretty soon. I thought I would record this video for posterity from my new office here. Finally got a view of the capital, and I'll be going over to vote no. Remember, today Trump is attacking Canada and me, and the difference between the two is Canada will eventually cave.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - March 4, 2025 at 10:02 PM
Saved - March 11, 2025 at 1:23 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

How can an air traffic display that looks like the 1979 arcade game Asteroids possibly be state of the art? The system used to monitor air traffic near airports is over 25 years old! Today, @transportgop held a hearing examining our outdated air traffic control infrastructure. https://t.co/WWcHtSLK21

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We're using systems that look 40 years old to monitor air traffic, and people are shocked this is state-of-the-art in 2025. A third of our systems are unsustainable due to challenges with spare parts, expertise, and funding. The audio is often garbled due to multiple aircraft on multiple frequencies. We use standardized phraseology and read-backs to ensure clear communication, but improvements are needed. There was a question if the helicopter heard the instructions, and NextGen aims to implement data communications for text-based communication between pilots and controllers. This digital capability reduces misreads and is a force enhancer, quieting the flight levels and improving communication. We will need more of this capability with increasing traffic.
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Speaker 0: I now recognize, mister Massey. Speaker 1: Thank you, mister chairman. I wanna direct everybody's attention to a video that we're gonna play here, and we're just gonna play about ten or fifteen seconds of this. That's enough. You can pause it. So mister Daniels, you were air traffic controller at one point. Is that correct? Speaker 0: Yes, sir. Twenty six years. Speaker 1: So can you tell me what we're looking at there on the screen? Speaker 0: You're looking at a display of a visual tower. It's we call it the stars scope. It's what they're looking at. It's what they're referencing for traffic in and around the area. Speaker 1: My constituents are always shocked when I tell them this is what air traffic controllers use in 2025 to monitor air traffic near airports. What what is the age of this system? Does anybody know when this these kind of scopes first came out? Speaker 0: I do have a and, again, thank you for the question. Do have a unique background in 1999 in the United States Marine Corps. I helped test that system when it was first rolling out. So it's been around since, them in early testing. Speaker 1: So we're looking at it at a display that's it it looks like it's 40 years old, but maybe it's 25 years old or quarter of a century. And it I know there's a desire not to complicate the screen, not to put too much information on there for air traffic controllers, to distract them, and I know they're probably extremely proficient at using this information at, deconflicting air traffic, but it just anybody who looks at this screen and and wonders how is this 2025 and this is the state of the art for air traffic control in The United States Of America is really perplexed in my mind, or in in my experience. Miss Krausz, can you talk about these legacy systems and, you know, when is the last time they've been updated substantially from this? Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, as we point out in our report and in my statement, there's about a third of the systems that are deemed unsustainable. So that means that they have challenges with finding spare parts, expertise, you know, retirement of technicians that can help up up you know, maintain these systems as well as some fund that could run into funding issues as well. I think whenever you're looking at modernization, you you know, have to assess them a couple of different areas like whether a system needs modernizing, what are the costs, what are the risks, what's the criticality, what's the system performance. And so certainly, are seeing an aging an aging a t sys ATC system and a need to make sure FAA is addressing those unsustainable systems. Speaker 1: You know, when we unfortunately have to go back and review video and audio from situations that happened like this recent crash, it seems like the audio is sometimes just barely intelligible when we get to listen to it. Is this the case? I mean, why is there static? Why is it hard to understand the communications between air traffic control and the plane sometimes? Is that an artifact of the recording device, or is that actually what they're hearing when they're talking to each other? Anybody, feel free to answer that. Speaker 0: Congressman, I'll I'll start out by saying again, thank you for the question. Quite often, it is as garbled as you hear. Multiple aircraft are on multiple frequencies. We continue to work with any persons or any contractors to improve it, but there are many occasions where we use standardized phraseology for those very moments. We know what the pilot's gonna say. We they know and expect what to hear back, so that way we reduce those communications. And even when it may sound, you know, garbled to somebody else, they know and understand our instructions. And if they don't, we ensure that we take the opportunity and time. We do what's called hear back, read back. We tell it to them. They have to tell it to us, and we make sure it's exact and matches. Speaker 1: In in the recent collision at DCA, there was some question as to whether that the helicopter actually heard one of the last instructions to it when we replayed it. What can we do to improve anybody here who wants to miss Krausz, is there anything that you know that we could do to improve the audio between communications? Speaker 2: I mean, part of the NextGen effort is to to to implement data communications improvement. So again, to improve provide text like communications between pilots and the controllers, but there may be some other folks that have thoughts on that question as well. Speaker 3: Carson Massey, when we when we fly, to have this digital capability is a true force enhancer because if the number of misreads out there is is truly significant, the controllers are talking on on multiple frequencies, sometimes just directly to you, but then they're they're broadcasting, you know, what is the ride at this altitude, but but also very specific information. When we get this through the data communications, it's amazing how quiet it gets up at the flight levels. And we're just now starting to exploit that capability. It really is is a great enhancer for the great work that our controllers do. And with the with the amount of traffic that we see soon to be in in the system, we're gonna need more and more of that capability. Speaker 1: Thank you, mister Bonta. I yield back.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - August 8, 2024 at 9:51 AM
Saved - March 11, 2025 at 1:19 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

A few months ago, Rhonda and I flew to Maine and had a lovely dinner with Tucker Carlson. The next day I sat down with Tucker for this interview. She was off camera in the studio with us during the interview.

@TuckerCarlson - Tucker Carlson

Rep. Thomas Massie doesn’t care what you think of him, which is pretty great. (3:19) Where Does US Debt End? (10:32) Why Massie Voted 15 Times Against Funding Israel (14:53) AIPAC (34:04) Mitch McConnell (42:25) Area 51 (50:32) Massie's Relationship with Trump (57:09) Kill Switches in Cars (1:05:58) Mike Johnson and the Deep State (1:14:34) How Massie Got Into Politics (1:18:29) Living off the Grid

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I'm wearing this debt badge that syncs to the treasury, showing the debt to the penny and how fast it's growing. It's a hundred thousand dollars a second, like launching cyber trucks into the ocean continuously. Lawmakers are apathetic, but I'm trying to make them realize the consequences. We're able to finance this because we're the world's reserve currency, effectively taxing the world through inflation. But this won't last. Ironically, sanctions are pushing countries away from using the dollar. Seizing other countries' assets is immoral and shortsighted, discouraging them from buying our debt. Some colleagues understand this, but vote for things anyway because it's popular. I keep dissenting, voting against foreign aid and proxy wars. It's not about right versus left, but honesty versus falsehood.
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Speaker 0: Do you know James Carville? Yes. So he got stuck at a roast one time when we worked together in New Orleans and had to take a leak and was on C SPAN. And on the tape, which I have seen, he's sitting there and he's kinda shuffling in his seat and all of sudden he takes this water pitcher off the table and sort Speaker 1: of He's like, so we can the water pitcher. Oh, gosh. So Speaker 0: what what is that thing moving on your lapel on your pocket? It's the debt. It's my anxiety generator. So it's it's actually making me really anxious. Is that is that real time? Speaker 1: Yes. So it synced to treasury. It gets the debt to the penny once a day, and then it looks at what the debt was a year ago, and it comes up with a rolling average debt per second, and it interpolates on weekends and holidays when the when the treasury is not paying attention. I am. So I think you're the only Speaker 0: one who wants to know. Speaker 1: Yes. And I want my colleagues to know and it's great to wear this thing in an elevator with like Adam Schiff and he's got nowhere to look. I once caught a a female congresswoman staring at it and had to tell her my eyes were up here. She asked me why I didn't make a belt buckle out of it. Speaker 0: Can you say who it was because I like No. I cannot. Oh. Well, she's funny. That's that's very impressive. So what's the message of it? Speaker 1: The message is this is urgent. You know, it's it's hard to comprehend 14 digits of debt, but when you see the last five digits are moving so fast you can't, you know, perceive them with your eyes, then you kind of understand, woah, we got a problem here. I mean, it's a hundred thousand dollars a second roughly. So imagine we had this catapult and we were launching cyber trucks once a second into the ocean. That's how much debt we're taking on continuously. Now, is some good news. I noticed last month, it went down. And I'm like, is my debt clock broken? Why is it going down? And I realized, oh, it's April 15. Everybody's paying their taxes. Right. So the good news is we balanced it for a month. The bad news is April 15 is the only reason that happened, and now the debt's going back up again. Speaker 0: So maybe it when it gets so big, it becomes something that you have to ignore. It's almost like if you fall off the wagon from drinking, you you binge. If you fall off your New Year's diet, you just eat the pizza and a Right. Ben and Jerry's. Like, do you care? You know, you sort of go crazy and it feels like we're there. Speaker 1: I am trying to make I wear this on the floor of the house. Yeah. And, people literally, they'll they'll press the button that says yay or nay. I've I've argued we should relabel the voting button spend and don't spend. Yeah. They're red and green if you got that far and can't read. I say it's like stop and go, but I've seen people press the spend button then turn around and look at my debt badge and ask, did it just go up? But I want them to realize there are consequences to what they're doing because they have been, I think, as you said, just ignoring it, putting it off to the Speaker 0: feels like, you know, it's so big that why even deal with it? Speaker 1: That's where we are. We're kind of I think a lot of lawmakers are apathetic. Yes. They're like, well, we can't fix it. We're not gonna fix it. We might as well indulge in it and I'll see what I can get. Speaker 0: Well, exactly. Yeah. So where does it end? Speaker 1: Right now, we're able to finance it because we're the world's reserve currency. Right. And when we print more money, which we're doing all the time, the Fed is doing that. We're actually taxing the world. Everybody in the world who hold holds dollars gets like a 3% transaction fee. I say, we're kind of like the credit card at the gas station that gets 3% because you're using that credit card. Speaker 0: Right. Speaker 1: Well, we get 3% from inflation we cause because the world is using our currency and we can do that as long as they use our currency. But I think it's going to end at some point, they're going to quit using our dollars as reserve currency. I mean, I watched your interview with Putin and one of the things, you know, whether you hate him or not, one of the things he said that is true is when we sanctioned him, before we sanctioned Russia, Seventy Percent of their transactions were in US dollars. And after the sanctions, it's less than 20% of their transactions are in US dollars. So what we're doing with all these sanctions, ironically, we're shooting ourselves in the foot every time we sanction a country and say you can't use our currency to have a transaction. We're we're taking away our ability to charge them 3% for that transaction because when we print 3% more dollars, we're just taking that money. Speaker 0: And we're also sending a really clear signal which is the dollar is not safe for you. Right. That is the reserve currency because it's a safe haven because it's a stable country. It's the most stable country in the world and we're not going to weaponize the dollar because that would be shooting ourselves, but suddenly we are. And they'll they'll tolerate like 3% because we're not backed by dollars, we're backed by aircraft carriers right now. Speaker 1: So they'll they'll sort of tolerate that 3%. But one of the things we recently did in congress, we passed something called the Repo Act, where we said we're just gonna seize all of Russia's sovereign assets in The United States. Well, it turns out a lot of that is treasury debt that they've agreed to buy, so that they can hold dollars. And here's here's the problem with that, when people see that we've seized their money that they gave us in exchange for these treasury notes, then other countries won't want to buy our debt. It's already happening. And the price of a long term bond that the treasury puts out will go it's already gone above 4%. It's like over four and a half percent. They don't wanna buy them anymore because, you know, we probably wouldn't seize Great Britain's assets. But I could see a seizing China's assets. Speaker 0: Why would I mean, that seems like theft. Just like take a country's assets. I mean, that belongs to the people of the country. Right? It's such as Putin. It is theft. Speaker 1: Like, it's immoral, but even if you're okay with the the amorality or immorality of it, it's shortsighted because eventually it'll catch up with us. Speaker 0: So do any of the dumbos you work with understand that? Did you say, wait a second, if we do this first of all, it's wrong and if we're going to be a beacon of light and order and justice in the world, we should abide by those principles. But even if you don't care about the even if as you said, you're right, amoral, like it's self defeating to do this. Do they understand that? Speaker 1: Some of them understand it, but it doesn't matter. They'll still vote for something like the Repo Act anyway because it's popular. And With whom? With voters. They think, yeah, take Russia's money. Like, you know, let's take yeah. Yeah. That'd be great. Let's take their money and use it in a war against them. It kinda feels good, but the problem is it's it's not moral in the long run and it won't work in the long run even if you were okay with it. Speaker 0: Why are we in a war with Russia? I've never figured that out. Why Russia? It almost seems like they picked it off a mat. Like, why would it be at war with Russia? Speaker 1: You know what's interesting is we were in Afghanistan, and I was tracking this. I I talked to the special inspector general, John Sopko, about twice a year about the money that was being wasted in Afghanistan. It was about $50,000,000,000 a year, and I was glad to see us get out of Afghanistan, but kind of like feathering the clutch and shifting gears, we just went from second gear to third gear because as soon as we quit spending $50,000,000,000 a year in Afghanistan, we started spending more than $50,000,000,000 a year in Ukraine. There's a military industrial complex, they call it the defense industrial base now in The United States. They say we have to they're hungry and we gotta keep them fed and since we don't have any of our own wars and we don't have a reason to deplete our stocks and our bombs and weapons that we have, we'll engage in these other things to keep them healthy and thriving. In fact, the Biden administration even made that argument in a letter to congress for why we should do this supplemental foreign aid to Israel, to Ukraine, to Taiwan. They made the argument that the defense industrial base needs to be strong, and so we need to spend this money. And they gave a list of all the states in The United States that would benefit from this spending and that's why they said we should do it. Speaker 0: But if you're if I mean, look, everyone who lives here wants to be proud of the country. I always have been. And I I'm proud of its people still. But if your main export is death, you know, that I mean, what Speaker 1: It doesn't work in the long run. Mean, there is Which wrong. We're engendering a lot of ill will. Look, ten years ago, even more recently than that, the only way we could get to the space station was on a Russian rocket. Speaker 0: Right. Speaker 1: And we, you know, we had a collaboration with them. We were able to get to space that way and now we don't. I mean, it's and the bad thing that's, you know, like in The Middle East, Israel's creating tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of of people who are gonna hate The United States and and you know, they're gonna hate Israel also. But because we're giving Israel the weapons to do what they're doing, we're creating a lot of people who hate us in this country. Speaker 0: But we're told that it's essential to our national security to do that. Do you believe that? Speaker 1: No. I don't see that. I mean, one of one of the reasons, like I said, the Biden letter said, well, we need to keep our industrial base strong, so let's fund all these weapons and send them over. But I don't see how it's strengthening our country. In fact, we're getting weaker by doing it. Speaker 0: So you've been, I think, the lone republican to dissent from a lot of these votes. Can you like, how many votes have there been Oh my gosh. On this question and where have Speaker 1: you voted on them? Oh, I've I've tried to keep track. There were something like 18 votes on Ukraine and I voted against every one of them since like 2014. When we started, you know, saber rattling. We do these non binding resolutions whereas, you know, Russia's evil, you know, whereas we support democracy. Now, then we knew that Ukraine was just corrupt as hell, but, you know, I Speaker 0: Like the most corrupt country in Europe by far. Yeah. Speaker 1: So I started you know, there's been 16 or 20 votes on Ukraine. I've been against all of those. Just in the last seven months, there have been probably 30 votes on Israel and The Middle East. 30? 30. There were somebody How Speaker 0: many votes on The US border during that time? Speaker 1: Oh, maybe maybe four show votes that, you know, where we know they're going nowhere in the senate. Look, we haven't named 30 So they're post offices. Like, last month, we voted like 15 or 16 times on issues related to Israel. And, you know, I've been hit because I voted no on all of those. Speaker 0: Why do you because you hate Israel or is there another reason? Speaker 1: No. Because I'm against sending our money overseas. I'm against starting another proxy war. I'm against sanctions because it's gonna weaken the dollar. I'm for free speech. Like all of these resolutions run afoul of those things and that's why I can't vote for them. Speaker 0: Tell us what the free speech part of it. Speaker 1: So recently, they brought a bill to congress, and this was actually a binding bill, not a non binding resolution. Right. This was gonna have the effect of law and people would get, you know, prosecuted if they engaged in anti semitism on campuses. And the problem with this bill is they use some international definition of anti semitism on a website somewhere. My first question is, why don't you just put the definition in the bill? Why are you pointing to somebody's URL in a piece of legislation? Speaker 0: You are the congress. Right? Speaker 1: Right. We are the congress. Speaker 0: Right? Should be. Speaker 1: Instead, we're referencing a website. Some that's not even, you know, hosted in The United States. And so, but so I went to this website and it's got a, you know, fairly short definition, but it's also got examples of things that would be considered anti Semitism. And some of these are actually passages in the New Testament, if you will, would be banned by this international definition of antisemitism. For instance, saying that Jews killed Jesus, which is, you know, in the Bible, he was he was not welcome among his own people. Okay? And so that would be anti semitism, and if you engaged in that on campus, or just offered that as a thought, let's say in a classroom, you would be anti semitic and you would run afoul of the Department of Education and some federal laws. And you know, there were other examples in there that were hard to believe. For instance, comparing the policies of Israel to to the Nazi regime would be anti semitic. But the question is, what if their what if their policies ever became the same? Is this a static definition? Speaker 0: Or what if we just have different opinions, and your opinion is now a crime? Speaker 1: Right. I mean, even if it's abhorrent. Speaker 0: Even if it's wrong and stupid. Speaker 1: Yeah. It's it's still legal. It should be. Speaker 0: You may have come to the obvious conclusion that the real debate is not between republican and democrat or socialist and capitalist, right, left. The real battle is between people who are lying on purpose and people who are trying to tell you the truth. It's between good and evil. It's between honesty and falsehood. And we hope we are on the former side. That's why we created this network, the Tucker Carlson Network. And we invite you to subscribe to it. You go to tuckercarlson.com/podcast. Our entire archive is there. A lot of behind the scenes footage of what actually happens in this barn when only an iPhone is running. Tuckercarlson.com/podcast. You will not regret it. So your colleagues, I I think it passed. Right? Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. It passed with flying colors, but at least a few people woke up to this. I mean, they were Speaker 0: So but the the members of congress who, you know, go to church on Sunday who've just voted to ban the New Testament on campus, make it illegal to quote from the New Testament, the Christian bible. Like, how did they square Speaker 1: that? I think their voters let them get away with it. I mean, they they don't have to square it unless they're Speaker 0: But why would they wanna do something like that? Speaker 1: Because there's a lot of pressure in Congress to vote for these things. And our Republican leadership thinks they're so smart, you know, we're in an election year, and they wanna bring up issues. They wanna put them in front of Congress and make us vote on them whether they're going anywhere in the Senate or not, and they wanna split the democrats. They wanna show that republicans are united and then split the democrats. That's one of the reasons they do it. Another reason they do it is there's a foreign interest group called APAC that's, you know, got the ear of this current speaker and demanded 16 votes in April on on Israel or The Middle East. We haven't had 16 votes in April on The United States in Congress. So what's APAC? APAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. And they didn't start out as a PAC in in the sense of a political action committee, but now they have a political action committee. Ostensibly, it's a group of Americans who lobby on behalf of Israel. They're for anything Israel. And they're very effective lobbying group. They get in there, they they try to get me to write a white paper as a candidate for instance for congress. They almost get On on what? On Israel. Like, and I wouldn't do it. And they said, why? And I'm like, I don't do homework for lobbyists. Right? I'm like, I didn't learn I didn't like writing term papers at college. I'm not writing one for you. Speaker 0: What did they say? Speaker 1: They said, oh, well, here just copy Rand Paul's term paper and put your name on it. We'll accept that. I'm like, no. I'm still not cribbing somebody else's homework to do homework. I'm not turning in my homework for you. And and what I hear laughing, but you know what? I bet I may be the only republican in congress who hasn't done homework for APAC. And it's just what it is, it's conditioning. They want you to do something very simple and benign and you know, for them. They don't really they don't really grade your term paper, they just want to know that you'll do something for them and if you'll do something for them as a candidate, you're more likely to do something for them as as a congressman when you get in there. So this my rift started out in 2012 when I refused to turn in an Israel respond to that? Well, they kind of got in my race a little too late there in the beginning, and because it was hard to tell that I was actually going to win, and when they saw I was going to win, that's when they tried to get me to do the term paper. They didn't have a political action committee at the time. They couldn't spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars against me at that time. It was just sort of like a whisper campaign to try to, hey, don't vote for him, blah blah blah. Speaker 0: Because why? Speaker 1: Because at that point, they sensed I wouldn't do what they wanted when Speaker 0: I got But what did they whisper against you? What were they saying about you? Speaker 1: Well, they would do it through, for instance, churches, evangelical churches. They've got an organization called Christians United for Israel, where they sort of co opted evangelicals. People think it's a grassroots movement in Kentucky, it's actually a top down movement from APAC, so that people who aren't even Jewish will feel like they've got to support Israel, you know, no matter what. And even if it's a secular state that funds abortions, they, you know, just sort of forget that part and we've got to fund Israel. So they have networks, so it's more than just about the money. Speaker 0: So you get elected despite their efforts, and then what happens? Do you talk to them after that? Speaker 1: And by the way, let me just put a little footnote here. I'm not against Israel. I've never voted to sanction Israel. I've never said anything particularly, you know, critical of Israel, you know, other than, for instance, right now, they're bombing they've killed 1% of the civilian population in Gaza. That's concerning to me. But so what do they do now? Speaker 0: Yeah. You get elected 02/2012. Do you hear from them again? Speaker 1: I vote my conscience, which they won't tolerate. So they ran with their five zero one c four before they had a super PAC. They were they were running educational advocacy ads against me saying that, you know, I'm bad on Israel. They didn't say don't vote for him, they just said he's he's a bad guy. And so I said, alright, well you're not welcome in my office anymore, because for years I I invited him into my office, let's talk this through, let me explain to you. I'm a libertarian leaning republican, I don't vote for foreign aid for anybody, so don't be offended when I don't vote for your foreign aid. I don't vote for wars anywhere, so don't be offended if I tell you that. I'm for free speech, even if it's abhorrent. And you know, we used to talk, but now they're banned from my office. The situation went from bad to worse. This election cycle, they spent $400,000 against me. $90,000 last fall running TV ads in my district, and Facebook ads, and whatnot, trying to equate me with the squad. And then this most recently, and in fact, as I'm speaking you to you today, even though my election is over, they're still running hundreds of thousand dollars of negative ads. Speaker 0: It's a little weird though, because as you said, you're probably the only republican in the house who hasn't done homework for them, who isn't on their side. And but the and that's okay. I mean, you can have, you know, you're a libertarian oriented republican from Northern Kentucky. You're probably not gonna single handedly determine our foreign policy. So you I think you should, but you don't Thank Speaker 1: you. Speaker 0: And you're Speaker 1: not going Speaker 0: to. So why do they care? Why not just let Thomas Massey be Thomas Massey in Northern Kentucky? Like, why why the need to crush you? Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it's they don't want one horse out of the barn. If one person starts speaking the truth, they're afraid it could be contagious, perhaps. Or it's like a new car. They they go to Mike Johnson, they say we want a Cadillac, you know, Escalade with pearl white paint, and here's, you know, here's the rims we want, and Mike Johnson puts that bill on the floor, it passes with a unanimous vote except for one guy votes no, and it I think they feel like it's a scratch on their car. They wanted a brand new car and it got scratched by this guy named Massey. They were gonna drive it over to the senate and ask for unanimous consent. But now the senators just say, wait, why this wasn't unanimous in the house. Why should we do it unanimously in the senate? And it starts raising questions and I think that's why they get mad. Speaker 0: What I find interesting is it's not just that they disagree with your views, which they do, and I think they have an absolute right to disagree with anybody's views. We all do. But they've called you a bigot, and call you an anti Semite and say you're a hater and try to destroy your character. That seems like a very different level of response to me. Speaker 1: Right. They there's no need to do that. I'm not anti Semitic. I don't have an anti Semitic hair in my head. Okay? It's I I mean, I don't like APAC anymore. Like, I used to be neutral toward APAC. Right? But I I have no antagonistic feelings toward Jewish people. I I am the last thing. I think I'm probably the least xenophobic person in congress. I mean, are the guys that my colleagues wanna sanction everybody, you know, declare them terrorist states, you know, come up with these strongly worded resolutions. I don't vote for any of that crap. Right? I'll unless somebody does harm to me, I'm not gonna call them anything. So I get called names just for staying out of all of this political posture. Speaker 0: That's disgusting though, isn't it? Speaker 1: You know, I guess Speaker 0: That's your character. They can disagree with your views Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 0: But but to call you like the worst thing you can Speaker 1: be in America, like, that's disgusting. You know, I I have a thick skin. Apparently. And and here's the good news, Tucker. My my constituents aren't falling for it. Two weeks ago, I just had a primary and got 76% of the vote. With APAC running hundreds of thousand dollars of ads. So it's it's not working against me. I I think it's shortsighted on their, you know, on their side to do this. They're just burning money, but they're trying to make an example of me Speaker 0: But they're also exposing their weakness. Speaker 1: I think they are. I think they've exposed a real weakness here. And, you know, it used to be just me voting against some of these resolutions, but recently where they tried to ban passages in the New Testament, I think we got like almost two dozen Republicans who said, wait, hold on there. Speaker 0: Just fundamental question. So the Biden administration has put a bunch of people in jail for violating something called FARA, the foreign agent registration act, nineteen thirty six ish. It's been on the books for, you know, ninety years. And it's never been enforced ever until recently, until really the Trump era and Biden era. So but the law requires people who lobby on behalf of foreign governments to register. It was that simple. And this is the largest lobby in the night most effective lobby in The United States on behalf of a foreign government. Are they registered with FARA? Speaker 1: They are not, but they should be. Speaker 0: Well, how how can that how can that be? How can they put Paul Manafort in jail, which they did, on a FARA violation and a bunch of other people in jail on fairer violations, but the largest and most effective and most feared foreign lobby working for a foreign government doesn't have to register under the law. That's insane. Speaker 1: Oh, man. Don't make me take their side, but I'll explain as best as I can what they're arguing. Speaker 0: Oh, may I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Speaker 1: Maybe No. Speaker 0: Should take their side. Speaker 1: I don't Well, I'm gonna agree with you at a second, but let me at least offer what I think is their argument. They they would say, we are Americans, you know, the members of APAC are Americans and that they have Yes. The right to free speech. Speaker 0: Paul Manafort's an American. Right. Right. Speaker 1: Yeah. That so there's the good rebuttal as FARA applies not to foreigners, to foreign agents Right. It's of foreign principles, agents of foreign principles. Americans lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. Correct. So this is A Pac is exactly what FAR is meant for. Now, would say, and we have a first amendment right. Okay. Well I agree. I agree with you there, but we also have election laws. And to the it's disclosure. Right? We're they're not FARA doesn't say you can't say Thomas Massie's, you know, an ignorant hillbilly. You're allowed to say that if you want to, but we just want to check where your money's coming from. Tell us where it's coming from, what you're spending it on, and if you are lobbying on behalf of a foreign country. So they should be, now to your point, they should be registered with FARA. This is what FARA is, is where there's gray area, where it's an American representing a foreign country. Let's let's look and see if you're getting any money from that foreign country. Are you a dual citizen with that foreign country? Are you being directed by for instance is Netanyahu speaking to your group, advising you on your next move? Those are you getting money from the military industrial complex? Like, because to understand APAC, I think it's easiest to model them as a military industrial lobby. Like, their biggest thing is they want more equipment, more military equipment from The United States going to Israel. In fact, when they used to be allowed in my office, the thing they the argument they would make is, oh, we're just stimulating the US military industrial complex because every single penny of the 3,800,000,000.0 that they nominally get, now they're getting way more than that, but that Israel nominally gets goes to US Military Contractors. Now that didn't make me warm and fuzzy, okay? But that is their argument. And if you notice what they advocate for, I think sometimes they advocate for things that even Israelis wouldn't advocate for. Speaker 0: I believe that. Speaker 1: Like they would, I think, be okay with a war with Iran, like a all out, you know, apocalyptic war with Iran. Whereas there are people in Israel saying, woah, hold on a second. We'd we'd rather not have a war with Iran. But APAC does things that lead us in that direction. And so they're kind of like what the NRA is to gun owners, APAC is to Israel. Or what the Farm Bureau is to farmers, APAC is to Israel. Other words Speaker 0: Represents a faction. Speaker 1: Right. They represent a faction, but usually a corporate faction. That and they're using the imprimatur of grassroots that they've diluted or confused into bullying congressmen. And the NRA does that, and Farm Bureau does that. I'm I'm picking on some, you know, other right wing groups here. Speaker 0: Well, for for sure. And by the way, I think there are probably a lot of things that APAC is for that I'm for, and Farm Bureau NRA same thing. Right. It's I just the idea of a foreign government playing in our political campaigns openly. Speaker 1: Openly in that they are showing you they're doing it, but opaquely in that you can't track it because they're not registered. Speaker 0: Is is there any other Republican who has your views on this? Speaker 1: Well, I have Republicans who come to me on the floor and say, I wish I could vote with you today. Yours is the right vote, but I would just take too much flack back home. And I have Republicans who come to me and say, that's wrong what APAC is doing to you. Let me talk to my APAC person. By the way, everybody but me has an APAC person. Speaker 0: What does that mean an APAC person? Speaker 1: It's like your babysitter, your APAC babysitter who is always talking to you for APAC. They're probably a constituent in your district, but they are, you know, firmly embedded in APAC and Every member has something like this? Every I don't know how it works on the democrat side, but that's how it works on the republican side. And when they and when they come to DC, you go have lunch with them. And they've got your cell number and you have conversations with them. So I've had like That's absolutely crazy. I've had four members of congress say, I'll talk to my APAC person and it's clearly what we call them, my APAC guy. I'll talk to my APAC guy and see if I can get them to, you know, dial those ads back. Speaker 0: Why have I never heard this before? Speaker 1: It doesn't benefit anybody. Why would they want to tell their constituents that they've basically got a buddy system with somebody who's representing a foreign country? It it doesn't benefit the congressman for people to know that, so they're not gonna tell you that. Speaker 0: It's it's in have you seen any other country do anything like this? Like No. Russia obviously determines the outcome of our elections. We keep hearing that. Does anyone have a Putin guy that they talk to? Speaker 1: Not only do they not have a Putin guy, look, they don't they they don't have a Britain guy. They don't have an Australian guy. They, you know, they don't have a Germany dude. Like, it's the only country that does this, that has somebody that like uniformly I guarantee there's some spreadsheet at APAC where where, you know, the the APAC dude is who's matched up with the congressman is there, and then all the congressman's votes on the issue. Oh, has the congressman been to Israel? They they pay for trips for congressmen and their spouses to go to Israel. I may be I mean, I don't I'm not the only Republican who hasn't taken the APAC trip to Israel, but I'm probably one of a dozen that hasn't taken that trip, and the other ones just haven't got around to it. Speaker 0: What's the trip like? Do you know? Speaker 1: It's kind of like, I think vacation y. You go see the wall, you go see the, you know, the sites, things like that. Speaker 0: It's such a great I must say, it's such a great country. Jerusalem especially is such a wonderful place that that's gotta have a big effect. Speaker 1: You go like swim in the Dead Sea. Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. I've done that. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 0: Not on an APAC trip, but Right. I would recommend it to anyone. Speaker 1: Are you sure it wasn't an APAC trip? Speaker 0: I wasn't. Paid for it myself. No. I mean, it's it's just funny. I mean, I am a, like, a legit lover of Israel, of the place Israel. I like the people, and I love the food and, like, the whole thing is so great. Speaker 1: Look, they have they've Speaker 0: But that's distinct from the government of Israel, which is just a foreign government. Speaker 1: My my sense is the people are are very entrepreneurial. Speaker 0: Oh. Speaker 1: Yeah. Totally. They're publicly minded, you know, they care about their country, that that they're generally good people. Right? Speaker 0: That's certainly been my experience in trips there for sure. It's great. It's just that's I mean, I think it's probably one of my favorite, maybe my all time favorite place to go with my family. But that's just a completely different thing from taking orders from its government. Right. Right. I mean, right? Speaker 1: Now, they'll again, they'll say it's these are American citizens who are, you know, coordinating all Speaker 0: It has just again, this is almost a rhetorical question, but in your whatever twelve, fourteen years in congress, twelve years, have you ever seen any indication that Russia is influencing election outcomes or candidates or members? Speaker 1: Not not in a quiet way. Like, you know, they'll put out statements. Russia obviously has Russia Today, RT. Speaker 0: Yeah. Think it's been banned, but Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: I I like they you know, Kentucky Fried Chicken, of which I'm a big fan being from Kentucky. Right? They realized that fried was became sort of a pejorative and Yeah. People didn't wanna eat fried food, so they changed the name to KFC. So you don't have to say fried. Okay? Russia today changed their name to RT, so you don't have to say Russia. But there's a strong analogy there. But I mean, are efforts. You'd be a fool to think that they're not trying to influence things here just like we are there. We, you know, we have what is it? Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. Yes. We we have I mean, we spend a billion dollars over well over a billion dollars on the foreign propaganda that's out in the open that we know about. Right? So there are foreigners spending money on propaganda over here as well. I don't want to say they're not involved, but people don't say, oh, I need to go talk to my Russia guy. Speaker 0: But but you've never, like, in the cloakroom or on the floor or at dinner, you've never heard another Republican member say, I'd love to vote for this, but Putin doesn't want me to. Speaker 1: I have never heard that. Speaker 0: You have. Okay. What about China? Speaker 1: No. There's I mean, unless it's a a spy sleeping with a democrat. Yeah. I'm sure there's some of that going on. Speaker 0: Yeah. But that's not Right. Speaker 1: That's not Speaker 0: in public. So how do you think it's it's just interesting because you're you're clearly not a bigot. I think it's very obvious. And they've called you one and they've spent, you know, millions of dollars against you over the years and it has had no effect. Get reelected in the primary in the seventies. So like, why are they still spending against you in in your state, statewide? And can you just continue to serve in congress while disobeying? Speaker 1: Well, they say that they don't want me to run statewide. They're worried that I'll run for McConnell's seat. And so they're trying to send me a message. That's what they would tell you. But why I don't know what the message is. Speaker 0: Maybe It's a little presumptuous to decide I guess Speaker 1: to be I've never said that I'm running for the senate. Right? Yeah. I I'm pretty much disinterested in it personally and publicly. But just in case, they're running ads statewide. Now, mind you, there are six congressional districts in Kentucky, and I only represent one of them. They're running the ads in all six congressional districts, just in case. Speaker 0: Amazing. What do you think of Mitch McConnell after all these years of being in the delegation with him? Speaker 1: He's a shrewd guy. Yep. He's quick. He's let me let me give you an example of how quick he is. So we had a congressman Jamie Comer who's now chair of the committee. He got elected in a special election, which means you come in in the middle of a term. And you have to boot up with no staff and so it's it's kind of you know, disorienting. So Mitch McConnell had a had an event for Jamie Comer on his first day in congress. It was in a townhouse with like 200 lobbyists. By the way, I'm never gonna get invited to one of these now that I tell you the story. And so Jamie's there and McConnell goes, I believe Jamie took his first vote tonight. And Speaker 0: That is such a perfect invitation. And Speaker 1: I wasn't supposed to speak but I interrupted senator McConnell who was at the time the majority leader. And I said, yes, senator McConnell, he did take his first vote and I know he has no staff. So I advised Jamie, when you walk into the chamber, look at how I vote and then vote the other way and you'll be just fine. And every, you know, 200 lobbyists thought it was a pretty good joke and they were laughing and as the laughter died died down, McConnell goes, well, Thomas, I'm glad you and I are giving Jamie the same advice. And then the the place just the walls almost Speaker 0: No. He's good. He's good that So Speaker 1: but I think it's time for new leadership in the senate. I mean, he's obviously it's way past time. And this is just a fact, I'll say it, I'll get in trouble for saying it. You know, I'm in races in Kentucky, we poll things in case, you know, we poll Trump's popularity, we poll the senator's popularity, in case they get involved in your race. Yeah. And senator McConnell's favorabilities are lower among Republican primary voters than our Democrat governor's favorabilities. Speaker 0: Seriously? Yes. Lower than governor Bashir? Speaker 1: Yeah. Bashir's around 40% among Republican primary voters, and McConnell's around 30%. Speaker 0: Well deserved. Well deserved. So I'm glad to hear that because I like Kentucky and I think its voters are sensible. What do you think accounts for in the final months and years of his public career? His public statements that all that matters is Ukraine. Speaker 1: Like, what is I have no idea. By the way, I have so many fights in the house Yeah. That I try to avoid every fight in the senate that I can. And you're you're trying to draw me in and I love you and I'll indulge these questions, but for twelve years, my strategy has been pick my fights in the house. Smart. Let let Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Ted Cruz and and you know, JD Vance, Rick Scott. Let those guys figure out the senate, because I haven't been able to fix the house. So I'm damn sure not gonna be able to fix the senate. Speaker 0: But do you it's just interesting. Okay. Taking McConnell out of it Yeah. And and even the senate out of it, but some of the committee chairman in the house, for example, seem like Ukraine is all that matters to them. And there's, of course, the questions you noted of donations from Lockheed, etcetera, the military industrial complex, but it it almost seems messianic to me. It seems heartfelt to me. It seems sincere that they think that this is all that matters, winning this war against Russia. What do you have any sense of why they feel that way? Speaker 1: I don't. And the hardest ones to understand are people like Mike Johnson, who used to be against the, you know, sending more money to Ukraine, but now that he's the speaker, he's like you said, he seems strongly convicted that we should be sending money there. Speaker 0: Almost like it's a religious calling or something. I mean, seems totally real to me. It doesn't seem Speaker 1: I've heard the argument. I think it's immoral, but I've heard the argument that oh, this is a great deal. We just spend money and we're grinding up Russia's capacity to wage war, particularly lots of Russians are dying and so we're told that's that's a good thing, you know, for since the cold war began, we've been taught that it would be good for Russia to be diminished. But they're they've go so so far as to say Russians dying, you know, to the tune of 300,000 casualties, they say, is just such a great thing that we need to keep this this thing going. And my answer to that is, why don't you tell us the Ukrainian casualties? They you know, I have been in classified settings with CIA, the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, not not their assistants, but those people in the room, and they're they're bragging about how many Russians have died and been injured, and I asked them how many Ukrainians have died and been injured, and they claimed they didn't know. I mean, that's just a flat out lie, and they said they would get back to me, and they've never gotten back to me. Like, not only is are Americans being fed propaganda about this war, congress is being fed propaganda by our state department or and our secretary of defense and our intelligence agencies. And you can just ask a few questions in these classified hearings. If nothing else, my colleagues should be convicted of a lack of curiosity. Like, they they sit there and they believe everything they're told because these are supposed to be the authorities and they know things we don't, But you can expose them with two or three questions, like, how many Ukrainians have died? And they refuse to answer. Speaker 0: I've asked that very same question to Mike Johnson, actually, directly. But I've also asked him and a number of committee chairmen, just in personal conversations, Do you, like, do you believe your intel briefings? Because only a child would believe an intel briefing. Take it at face value, there may be truth in there. Right. Maybe largely true. But you're being spun. You're being manipulated. And if you don't know that, then you're a moron. But they seem to believe them. Speaker 1: They because they have no other reference. And then here's what else happens, Tucker. When you go into a classified setting, like a skiff, you lock up your phone, you take off your Fitbit, you take every electronic device. They even make me take off my debt badge. What? Yeah. I know. Speaker 0: Do you feel naked? Speaker 1: I feel exposed. I mean, do feel naked if I'm not wearing this. I've been wearing it for a year every day of my life. Okay? But they make you they strip you of every outside reference. Okay? And now your staff is not allowed in that meeting either. Remember congressmen, our primary roles are like raising money, being friendly to constituents, you know, putting on a good face, campaigning, and then then, you know, once a day or maybe twice a day we roll in there and press the vote buttons based on what staff advises you. Well, when you go into a SCIF, you don't have your smartphone, so you're not very smart. They start using acronyms that you don't know remember what the acronym stands for. You can't just like, okay, what are what's the IDGFBZ? I don't know, man. I must be stupid. Like, but you know, if you were in a regular setting, you just pull your phone out and like, oh, okay. That's what that is. I know what that is. And then you also can't ask your staff a question while you're in that setting, know, we have legislative staffers who handle certain specific areas. Speaker 0: Of course. Speaker 1: You can't bring them in and then when you go back to the office, you can't tell them what you heard. So it's really quite an experience. It's sort of it's, you know, it's a deprivation experience of any outside reference. Speaker 0: So it's designed to produce Stockholm syndrome, it sounds like. Speaker 1: Yes. And when you get in there, they really don't give you classified information. I say there's three levels of classification in the skiff. There's Facebook level, there's Twitter level and there's New York Times level. Like and the New York Times level is the highest level of classification. I mean, it's you're getting to the good stuff when they're telling you what's in the New York Times that week. Speaker 0: Have you ever heard anything you thought was genuinely secret? Speaker 1: Occasionally, just a few times and obviously I can't say what that is. But they slip up and commit candor occasionally in there. And you're like, woah, I didn't know that. You know, nothing like what's at Area 51. Right? But occasionally, you're just like, what do people think Speaker 0: is at Area 51, by the way? Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not a You Speaker 0: you guys passed this law, the UAP disclosure act of 2023, and then they never disclosed anything. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 0: What is that? Speaker 1: Not my area of expertise. Yes. Don't know. Speaker 0: But do members of congress ever say, wait a second, we're a co equal branch, a legislative branch. We have as much power as the president collectively. And you can't keep this stuff secret from us, you're not allowed to do that. Speaker 1: But see, like, I have this in hearings all the time. They'll say, I'll ask ATF director, this is this happened just last week. Dettelbach or I'll I'll ask Merrick Garland something or Christopher Wray. Like I've asked all them this and they give you the same answer. It's long standing DOJ policy not to comment on on ongoing investigations. And you know what? That's fine to tell a reporter, but you can't tell the branch of government that created you that, that funded you. You can't tell them that. That's why the omnibus was so disappointing to me, is the only way these three letter agencies are gonna come to heel is if we cut their funding in some specific area. I've joked we could just withhold one toner cartridge for one printer at the FBI, and they would come over with a whole binder full of information. But we can't even bring ourselves to deprive them of a toner cartridge. So we put 200,000,000 for new FBI building in the omnibus bill, and, you know, to their credit, Jim Jordan and Jamie Comer wouldn't didn't vote for that. And they're chairman of committees, but they are completely frustrated with the fact that the FBI just thumbs their nose Speaker 0: at it. So is that the speaker who allowed that to happen? Speaker 1: Oh, he absolutely allowed it to happen. Speaker 0: So to what extent are members of congress committee chairman leadership controlled by blackmail? Speaker 1: I really don't think there's much blackmail. Like if there is, I'm not aware of it. The I have people come up to me, you know, travel around the country, Texas and you know, other states, and speak to groups, food freedom groups, you know, first amendment, second amendment groups. And they come to me and they say, why did my congressman sell out? Like, I'll just Bob was such a great guy. And I campaigned for him, I made phone calls, I put up signs, and then we sent Bob to congress and he he votes the wrong way every time. Why is it? What do they have his kids in a basement somewhere? Does he have kitty porn on him? Like Yeah. What is it? Why did Bob go bad? And I have to look him in the eye and say, Bob just wanted to be liked. Yeah. Like, there is a a gene inside of congressmen. I think they if you look for a common denominator, they they like people and they want to be liked for the most part. And if and they're likable. If they're not likable, they it's hard to get elected. Okay. So this self selects for likable people, but likable people want to be liked. And they're not surrounded by their wives and children who usually give them plenty of like, right? When they're in DC, it's like, who am I gonna go to dinner with tonight? Well, I wanna eat food with somebody that likes me, right? So if you're not gonna eat alone, and you have to be liked, and you generally have to be liked to get elected to congress, you you better be liked. And and so it's literally, it's almost like kindergarten when somebody says, I won't be your friend anymore if you don't, you know, give me your lunch. Congressmen fall for that, you know, they're in their thirties I knew. Forties fifties and they fall for that. Speaker 0: How do you have it's interesting. You like people, I've asked around, you don't seem to have any real enemies in the congress. I don't even think APAC hates you, they just want you to obey, but they know it's not it doesn't seem personal. Speaker 1: Right. You don't Speaker 0: seem to be at personal war with anybody. I I I that's my take on it. Speaker 1: I have a mutation. Speaker 0: So you like people. Okay? Speaker 1: I love Speaker 0: Obviously, you're not some weird autist who doesn't care about other people. You like other people. I love people. I can tell. And your colleagues say that. But you also don't feel like you need to fit in Right. At the same time. Like, what is that? Speaker 1: It's a mutation. That chromosome, the like the liking people and likability chromosome usually has another gene on it right next to it, which is the need to be liked. And I'm missing the need to be liked gene. I don't know what happened. Like, I can go like on the CARES Act. Okay? This was under president Trump. The eleventh day to slow the spread of 15. Right? They said we're gonna pass a $2,200,000,000,000 package and you all just stay home. It's dangerous. Like, we'll just do it by unanimous consent. And it was 11PM, I'm sitting in my living room and and they send us this message and I'm like, WTF? Like this is the this is twice the size of the omnibus bill. Right? This is gonna cause massive inflation. The policies in it are gonna cause shortages, and if we don't show up to vote, we're sending a message to all 50 states that you don't have to show up to vote in this election. So it's like, we I gotta do I got in my car and I drove eight hours. I slept one hour in a rest stop because I knew I had to be there by 9AM. This was 03/27/2020. Actually, the twenty fifth is the day I got to congress to stop it. And I got there and I said it's not going by unanimous consent. And I was literally sleeping in my wife's SUV eating those peanut butter filled pretzels, like I had a big jug of those. Speaker 0: Those are good. Speaker 1: Yeah. For my three days of nourishment, I'm sitting in SUV eating that big tub of pretzels with peanut butter in the middle, like waiting just waiting for them to try to call it in session and sneak this bill past. And they're like, shit, Massey's gonna do it. So they they loaded up congressmen, you know, the airports were shut down for the most part. There were some planes coming from California, they only had two passengers and they were both congressmen. So they they roll them all back to congress. It takes them two days to assemble a quorum, because I like they went to the parliamentarian and they're like, is there any way around this? And he's like, nope, Massey's right. The constitution requires a quorum if one, you know, he didn't call me an asshole, but if one asshole just shows up, objects and says there's no quorum here. So they brought every back, I go to the floor, actually got a everybody was hating me. I mean, everybody. Did you know what it's like to be in a room of 434 people and they're all staring at you like there I had maybe 10 friends who were like looking at me like, that guy is dead. Like I've we've never seen Harry Carey like this. They were worried for me, but the rest of them hated me. They're they would come up to me and say, I I live with my mother, and when I go back home, you're gonna cause me to take COVID to her and she's gonna die and I'm blaming you for this. And I said Speaker 0: You said that to your face? Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, like, no, it wasn't just one. It was like, when he was done, there was a line of people. I just like stood there and they're all coming to hate on me. And I was like, but what about the guy that's going to the grocery store and bagging your groceries and carrying them out to the car? Does he live with his mother too? Like, what about the trucker who's out there driving and interacting with people in order to get the goods to where you need to be? What about the nurse who's going to work every single day taking care of people? Is she gonna kill her parents? Like, where why are you special? Like you're supposed to, you know, they they carved a hole in the side of a mountain in West Virginia for us in the case of emergency. Yes. That well, the sad but but realistic thing is, now they don't have a place for us, we're so useless. Right? They're just like, well, here's where we were gonna keep them if shit hit the fan. But now we we've realized they're like useless. We can declare war without them in the event of a nuclear strike, so you know, they're just a rounding error in the three branches we can operate with two. Speaker 0: Yes. I've noticed. Speaker 1: So anyways, these are the kind of people who are supposed to respond in an emergency, and they all wanted to stay home. They all hated me for for recognize our constitutional duty. And and Trump called me three times on the floor of the house while I was getting ready to make the motion to object. And I let it go to voicemail three times in a row. Which is probably not good, but I couldn't leave the microphone. Because I was asking people, would you make this motion if I go to the restroom? They're like, oh no. No. Not me. So I I sat there, I I finally they yielded time for debate, I go off the floor and called the White House switchboard back. And and you know, I didn't have his number, I just like, if you want a tour of the White House, you call the number I called. Right? And like the intern is like, oh, is this congressman Massey, I'm putting you through to Trump right now. And so he comes off and he goes, I'm coming at you like you've never seen. Never in your life before. Have you seen the way in which I will come at you? I'm more popular than you in Kentucky and you know it. I'm backing your primary opponent and you're gonna lose. Speaker 0: Oh, come on. Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh crap, I probably will lose. I mean, I had 95% popularity in among my republican electorate who I had to face in about eight weeks in my primary. And I had a well funded opponent and here now is Trump was mad at me. So he screamed at me for two or three minutes, I kept trying to talk and he just screamed louder, then he repeated it all. He goes, no. This is the second time you've done something like this. And they talked me out of it before, but not this time. And then, you're gonna lose. And he hangs up. And like, the thing is, like, I had he said he thought it was the second time. I'd done that like eight times since he was president. He just started realizing it's the same guy. The the time before that was on war with Iran. The Democrats were in the majority, and, you know, he had just vaporized Soleimani. Speaker 0: Yeah. Speaker 1: And we were worried that he would attack Mainland Iran without a vote of congress. So the Democrats actually insincerely, there aren't too many anti war Democrats left. I've noticed. But they realized this was a chance to make a statement, so they put a bill on the floor saying Trump, he can't go to war with Iran without a vote of Congress, which is constitutionally obvious, so I had to vote for it, but I was only one of three Republicans to do it. So he remembered that time, but he didn't remember the fake Obamacare repeal, and some of the other things that I was kind of, you know, the turd in the punch bowl on. Speaker 0: Did did it change your views at all? Speaker 1: No. The the president tweeted that I was a third rate grandstander, and that like this is before I got back to my seat. Like, I go back from the speaker's lobby to go to my seat to get ready to make the motion and one of the congress was like, you better look at your phone, Massey. Look at your Twitter and I turn it on. He's like tweeting hard and heavy against He said I should be thrown out of the party. Then he the best one is, I'm chairman of the second amendment caucus. So his third tweet was, he's terrible on guns. I was like, what? Where did that come from? Have you seen my Christmas card picture? Great. Speaker 0: What's your Christmas card picture? Speaker 1: Well, it's a little infamous. Speaker 0: No. I I've actually seen it, but I Speaker 1: just Okay. Speaker 0: The benefit of those who have not. Speaker 1: So, you know, I got my family together for Christmas, and we got bluegrass instruments out. We play music together, and we took a Christmas card picture with bluegrass instruments. And I said, hey, wouldn't it be kinda neat if we just like change these all out for machine guns, and took a picture. And that was supposed to stay on my phone for eternity, but I'd had a couple medical margaritas one night. I don't do medical marijuana, but I had a few medical margaritas and I looked at that picture and I thought, well, that's pretty good picture. It'd be ashamed if nobody ever saw it and I tweeted it. No. I caught all kinds of hate for that. Speaker 0: The arch It's a great picture. Speaker 1: The archbishop of Canterbury condemned it. This is the head of the church of England condemned my tweet. I'm like, oh my gosh. Speaker 0: Are are you an Episcopalian? Speaker 1: I'm a Methodist. Speaker 0: Good. So you can ignore him. Yes. Yeah. He's a he's a disgrace. Speaker 1: So so anyways, I, you know, the press asked me as I'm we're talking about the need to be liked Gene. Right? If I had that, I would have been devastated that day. If I had needed to be liked, I couldn't have carried that through, and I walked out of that chamber, everybody's hating me in the chamber, Nancy Pelosi called me a dangerous nuisance, CNN called me the most hated person in D. C, John Kerry called me an asshole or something, and president Trump called me a third rate grandstander. This is all in the course of a few minutes. Right? I walk out of the chamber of the house and the reporters like swarm me, you know, like they do, and I'm just trying to run back to the SUV with the pretzels with peanut butter in them and get out of there. And the the press said, what do you have to say for yourself? Your own president just called you a third rate grandstander. And I paused for a second and I said, was offended. I'm at least second rate. Speaker 0: So So what happened to your relationship with Trump? Speaker 1: It you know, I think he respects people that stand up. Yep. Even if he I Speaker 0: think you're absolutely right. Disagrees with Yes. That's correct. Speaker 1: And two years later, he did endorse me. No way. Yep. Speaker 0: Do you get along with him okay now? Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I did endorse Ron DeSantis, not out of spite or animosity, because we had already patched things up. Just because I served with Ron DeSantis for six years and he and I were really good friends. We talked about bills when he was in congress. He he entered he and I fought over who was gonna introduce the bill to eliminate congressional pensions. You know, and he won and I co sponsored it. Now, I'm the sponsor, now that he's a governor. But I knew he was a good person and he thinks things through and he was smart, so I I endorsed him. But, you know, because I have I call it natural immunity. I have Trump antibodies at this point. They may wear off at some point. I don't know. It's you Speaker 0: think if you did run for say, just pulling us out of a hat, but governor of Kentucky, do you think Trump would endorse you? Speaker 1: I don't know. He'd probably do some polling and see who was winning. Speaker 0: Fair. Fair. Totally fair. Speaker 1: I I wouldn't turn down an endorsement. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 0: So it's it's not so are you at war with anybody in the congress? Speaker 1: No. I get along with everybody. I mean and people try to use this against me. You know, when APAC was running those ads that say I always vote with AOC and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, you know. So, I introduced an amendment and forced to vote on eliminating the kill switch in automobiles that's mandated you. Yeah. Well, I was losing Republicans on that. I lost like 20 Republicans. So I knew I needed some Speaker 0: So just to be clear for the people who don't know what you're talking about. New in new vehicles, this has been the case for years, they can be turned off remotely by the authorities, which is like the most North Korean thing ever to happen. That's what you're talking about. Speaker 1: Yeah. By 2026, every new automobile sold has to be able to turn itself off if it doesn't like your driving. So, I'm like, how do you appeal this conviction at the roadside? Right? Maybe you swerved to miss a deer and pulled over for an ambulance and you got your kids in the car and Speaker 0: it stops. One vote for something that evil? I don't understand. Speaker 1: Because again, they know it's a that I'm right, but they're worried about for instance, mothers against drunk driving. Or they they don't have the bravery Wait. Speaker 0: Worse, we just let in millions of illegal aliens who are allowed to drunk drive. Right. And Biden has told us that drunk driving is not a big deal. It's not grounds for Deportion. Or deporting. Yeah. So who mothers against drunk driving, as far as I know, has said nothing about this, like, cares what they think? Speaker 1: I I know and but there may be, let's say, one constituent in your district who gets a hold of you and they lost a child to drunk driving, which is terrible. And they say, well, you know, you don't care about me if you vote for Massey's amendment. And you know, they make that personal phone call, that congressman doesn't have the fortitude to say, or knowledge to say, look, this technology can't work. I I really care about your child, I think drunk driving is a scourge, and I wanna fix it, but this is a false promise and it's only gonna increase the price of automobiles and give the government more control, so I'm gonna vote with Massey. They don't have the courage to say that. So long story short, I lost 20 Republicans. I needed some Democrats. So I went over to AOC, who I get along with just fine, don't hate me for saying that. I don't. And I said, AOC, they're running ads right now that say you always vote or that I always vote with you. Just once, could you vote with me? Could you vote for my kill switch amendment since they're running ads the other way? And she did. She voted to defund the automobile kill switch. Speaker 0: Good for her. So she ran it's it's interesting. I mean, obviously, I don't like her, but I think she's talented. She she is definitely talented. But she ran as a radical as someone from the outside, which I'm of course very sympathetic to. But she doesn't seem to be actually be that person. So like for example, on the foreign aid stuff, how often does she vote with you on Quite quite frequently, but I had Speaker 1: a a funny moment, you know, this 15 or 16 votes we had on Israel in Yeah. April. Well, the squad and I and I know this is gonna be used in the next ad against me, this clip from Tucker. But I was the only no sometimes. Sometimes the most of the squad voted with me, but I noticed AOC wasn't always there with me. So I went over to the squad on the democrat side of that. Speaker 0: Do they literally sit together? Speaker 1: They they hang out together. Yeah. They kinda it's really click ish. Even, you know, the freedom caucus sits together, the Texas delegation sits together, there are different clicks. The appropriators sit together. It's the the military guys, the intel guys sit together. You know, sometimes it's by state, sometimes it's by click. A lot of the congressional black caucus sits together. I can't get the second amendment caucus to sit together, that's my caucus. Speaker 0: They're too independent minded. Speaker 1: You're too independent. But so I go over to their Speaker 0: But this is just high school cafeteria. Speaker 1: It's high school cafeteria, that's what it is. And why would you again, they need to be liked. Right? They don't want to sit next to people they don't like, or who don't like them. So I go over I went over to the squad a few weeks ago, and I said, I told AOC for the squad, I said, we're gonna kick you out if you don't keep voting with this more consistently. What did she say? She laughed. She thought it was funny. I mean, she has a sense of humor. These people are humans. There are 435, I call them goldfish in the aquarium. You have to get 218 of them to pass a bill. So it doesn't benefit me to hate on any of them. Someday, you know, on some days they may vote with. Speaker 0: Well, they're also people. If you can help it, shouldn't hate people, period. Speaker 1: We've we've formed coalitions on the first amendment, on the fourth amendment, on war sometimes, like to eliminate cluster bombs, delivering cluster bombs. Even though the Democrats almost to a person, actually to a person, want to give Ukraine more aid, some of them are like, well, the cluster bombs, maybe we shouldn't do that. Okay? And so you can form coalitions, so I try to do that when I can. Speaker 0: But why aren't there anti war Democrats? Since it was the anti war party for like forty years. Speaker 1: I don't know. And then we've lost a lot of them on privacy and and free speech as well. I think with Russia, you asked this before, there's there's this element that I didn't answer. It's sort of a proxy against Trump for them now. They in their in their file folders in their brain, Trump and Russia are in the same file folder. Yes. Even though that's a false narrative that's been dispelled long ago, it's still in their same file folder. So when they see Ukraine is fighting Russia, they use that as a proxy for their hate for Trump, and so they'll they'll vote for that. And they did. They waved I don't know if you saw this, they were waving Ukrainian flags after Mike Johnson put the bill on the floor I saw. And every Democrat voted for it. This was premeditated. Somebody had to go buy, you know, 200 Ukrainian flags and hand them out, and I filmed it, which you're not supposed to do, but you're also not supposed to wave flags of other countries on the floor of the house. So I'm like, alright. I'm gonna expose this. So I filmed it and I put it on Twitter to show what like the humiliation that Mike Johnson brought upon us by bringing their the Democrat bill to the floor without any and it was leverage too, even if you're a Republican and you're okay with sending money to Ukraine. That's a leverage point. Get do something for our country and require that as a condition of doing whatever that is, but he gave up all the leverage. I put that video on Twitter. Three days later, the sergeant at arms tracks down one of my staffers in Kentucky, because we're no longer in session, and says he needs to delete that video from Twitter, or we're gonna take a fine out of his salary, out of his congressional salary. And so mister Stafford, he knew what I was gonna do, he told me what they had just said. I said, alright, I'm retweeting it. Did you? Oh, yeah. And it got like 8,000,000 views. It went from 4,000,000 to 8,000,000. And then, you know, sometimes you just gotta double down and the speaker had to announce on Twitter that I wouldn't be fined for that. Speaker 0: But there but no one was considering finding any member who waved the flag of a foreign nation on the floor of the house of representatives. Speaker 1: Right. And they were taking selfies of of them with their foreign flags too, and no none of them got a phone call. Only I got a phone call because I exposed the humiliation. It wasn't just a humiliation of those of us in congress, it was a humiliation of our country. I mean, it's one of the most corrupt countries in the world and they got everything they wanted for them and the democrats are waving the flag even though the Ukrainian flag even though they're in the majority and we just have to like sit there and and take that. It was it was horrible. Speaker 0: Do you think any I mean, the leader of Ukraine is not elected anymore. He his term has ended. He's not having a new election. He's the unelected maximum power. In some places, we call that a dictator. And yet, they're still hitting us with a democracy, pro democracy talking points. Do you think I mean, have they thought this through at all? Do they are they just lying? Like, what is that? Speaker 1: They're lying. Yeah. I mean, they know it. And the good news is some Republicans are waking up to it. Remember, when we started voting on these Ukraine resolutions, even, you know, as soon as the war started, I was the only no. There was like this open ended promise in a in a non binding resolution that said, well, give them whatever they need. And there were only like two other Republicans that joined me on this, but now we've got a majority of Republicans in congress who are saying, wait, this is they aren't using this money like we thought they were, and we're giving them money to fund pensions of retired politicians in Ukraine, who were most certainly corrupt, and we're paying their pensions with this money. But most Republicans don't support it. So that means that your speaker, the Republican speaker of the house, Mike Johnson, is working for the Democrats. Yeah. It's that simple. I mean, and and that's one of the reasons we went through with the motion to vacate. Paul Gosar and I cosponsored Marjorie's motion to vacate. There were ultimately 11 of us who voted for it. Speaker 0: Motion to vacate would be to fire him. Speaker 1: To fire speaker Johnson, just like they had done Kevin McCarthy. Although, I thought inappropriately and at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons, they did that to McCarthy. But here we had speaker Johnson who was doing all the things people were afraid McCarthy might do, they they pre convicted McCarthy for things they thought he would do. And here Mike Johnson came and did all these things, he put an omnibus on the floor, he passed the foreign intelligence surveillance act, re upped that without warrants, built the FBI a new building and gave Ukraine all this money. So what what happened, what Marjorie and I and Paul decided ultimately is we needed to expose the uni party, and never before have you had Democrats vote for a Republican speaker, and that's why we forced the question. Nancy Pelosi voted for him, Hakim Jeffries went on national TV and said, why would we want to get rid of him? He's given us everything we want. I mean, the the uni party has never been so exposed as it was when we called that motion to vacate. I know some people got mad at us, said we shouldn't have done it, but it's a long game, which we certainly hope that he doesn't become speaker next January, and hopefully people have seen with Nancy Pelosi rushing to speaker Johnson's aid, that he's not the speaker you want when Trump wins the White House and we keep the majority. Speaker 0: Do you think he will be? Speaker 1: A lot of this depends on what the people want, and if they can see it. Hopefully, also Trump sees it that Mike Johnson is gonna would be even worse than Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan put while he was still in the while we were still in the majority, Paul Ryan sent like a dozen CR's or omnibus bills to president Trump's desk because it didn't have any money for a wall in it. Like, he had no intention of ever funding a wall, Paul Ryan did. It you know, and so I think Mike Johnson is gonna be similarly the same way. He's basically working for the deep state at this point in the uni party. Speaker 0: How did that happen? Do you have any idea? Speaker 1: The the Paul Ryan bit or No. Well, Paul Speaker 0: Ryan is a Change. You know, is a sinister person, I happen to know, but also, you know, not just kind of not a genius and an ideologue at the same time, which is like a bad combination. Dumb ideologues are the scariest. But Mike Johnson seemed like kind of a moderately conservative, kind of sincere, decent guy. You know, maybe he would babysit your kids and do an okay job. Mhmm. Unlike Paul Ryan. And but he just and then he immediately just becomes a tool of CIA and Jake Sullivan and the Biden administration. Like, how did that happen so fast? Speaker 1: Well, one of the things he claims, which I don't believe is true, and I have reason to say this, is that he says he went in a skiff, like he's had some a 80 degree turns on some things, like for instance, whether you need a warrant to spy on Americans using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, seven zero two program. Well, he used to be on judiciary committee with me and Jim Jordan, trying to reform that, trying to get understood what it was. He knew completely what we were talking about. He's an attorney too, right? And he knows the constitution. He knows this is required, but he claims he spent time in a SCIF and he learned things. SCIF, that's a pure compartmentalized information facility or something. It's where we go, we have to leave our phones locked up, you know, no staff in there. He claims he spent time in SCIF and learned things that changed his mind. Here's the problem, Tucker, I was in SCIF with him. Like, we we had we had DNI, not just the the current DNI, but the former DNI, John Radcliffe, Trump's DNI. We had CIA, we had FBI, we even had a FISA judge in there, and we spent three and a half hours. It was a four hour meeting, and after three and a half hour, it's basically a psy op, where they're just trying to beat you down and and do the things, and I was like, this is ridiculous. You get you haven't given they didn't give us one example of any time ever since FISA was created, that getting a warrant would have kept them from solving or preventing an act of terrorism. They gave hypotheticals, but they had no specific Speaker 0: And I think FISA has been in place since 1978, since the seventies. Right. So almost fifty years. And they couldn't give you one example? Speaker 1: Not one example. Now, they also expanded it after 09/11 and to to do the the program to go against civilians, to spy on civilians. And and and actually that product came out of the judiciary committee. Here's another place where the speaker betrayed us. FISA seven zero two was created by John Conyers and Jim Sensenbrenner. Conyers was the chairman Oh yeah. And Sensenbrenner was the the ranking member. And what Mike Johnson said this year was, well, even though the judiciary committee created this and is responsible for overseeing it, I'm gonna let the intel committee bring the bill to the floor without warrants in it. It wasn't even their jurisdiction. They have jurisdiction over FISA as long as it's for the CIA, but not for the FBI. So, that was frustrating and but But shocking. It's it's shocking. It is shocking. So he said, you know Speaker 0: Like end of civil liberties level stuff. So Yes. How yes. But it's not like he learned new information, the skiff No. As you Speaker 1: were there. I was there. So what so that's that's a Right? Right? The fact that I was there. Right. That's telling people on your show that I was there for three and a half hours, and Mike John go ask Mike Johnson. He'll say, yep. He was there for three and a half hours. Speaker 0: So what is the truth? What do you think changed? Speaker 1: I think he's kind of a lost ball in tall weeds. I think he's in a position of power he never imagined he would get to at this point in his life. He's not done anything in private practice or political arena that's prepared him for this. Took the job with a very small staff. He didn't have people to put in all positions on the field, and he had to accept a lot of suggestions in areas he didn't know a whole lot about, although he gets no pass on FISA. Yes. He gets no pass on Ukraine, because he does, as you pointed out, he doesn't even know how many casualties have been incurred on the Ukrainian side. I mean, he needs the second person in line for president after Kamala Harris. This is this is scary to me. He's he's basically getting moved around. Speaker 0: It's create you said nothing he did in his life before this prepared him for it. But that itself may be kind of a more charitable explanation because Speaker 1: I'm trying to be charitable. Speaker 0: I mean, Speaker 1: I gotta go back to working Speaker 0: with prepared you for this. So just for those who don't know, you went to MIT, your high school girlfriend joined you at MIT, you married her whilst while she was still there. And then together, you started a company based on an a very sophisticated invention that you came up with, maybe the first of about 30 patents that you now have. You ran this company for a long time, then you moved back to Kentucky. And a lot of things happened, you end up running for congress. So, like, that's not the background. Speaker 1: Well, so nothing in the political arena, but in my private life, you know, I raised $32,000,000 of venture capital, and I swam with the sharks. Yeah. Like, the the I had lots of moral dilemmas in the course of creating that company. I could have taken money off the table and gone and done other things, but instead I felt the commitment to my staff and to other investors. I had investors who said, if you'll just shit can that guy you hired as president, we'll double our investment. And I'm like, no. He's my partner. I'm not like, he helped me get to this point. I'm not gonna abandon him. Good for you. And so, you know, I had experiences in life that and then also just put my hands in the dirt on my farm, Speaker 0: like So tell me about that. So you live tell us about how you live and where you live, because Speaker 1: I think it's one of Speaker 0: the most unusual things about you. Speaker 1: So I spent, you know, I grew up as a hillbilly in Eastern Kentucky. What county? Lewis County. Lewis County. Speaker 0: How many people in your town? Speaker 1: 13,000 people, 13,000 cattle. It's a huge landmass and it's a great county, but there's it's one of the 21 counties that I represent. It's actually the poorest county per capita income that I represent, but it's the one I grew up in. So it's very unlikely that the congressman for the district would come from the poorest county. So I grew up as a little nerd, I love taking stuff apart, because I was bored, there were no malls, you couldn't ride your bicycle to any, you know, store to of and if you did, you didn't have any money, So I had to find things to do at home, I took apart things, built things, entered science fairs, built robots, made it to the international science fair as a as a little, you know, hillbilly. Won an award from NASA there, and at at the age 15, like I won the high school level awards. And got into MIT, never visited the campus, didn't really have the money to go visit it, but I read about it. There was no internet, seemed like a good place. I got there, I'd I'd lived in a town of 1,900 people all my life, and I I was there for six hours in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I crossed Massachusetts Avenue, they had a crosswalk and a stoplight, know, never really seen two of those things together. I'd seen crosswalks and stoplights, but so I walked through the the crosswalk and a car honked, like that short little Boston, meep meep. And I thought, oh my gosh, I've been here six hours and already run into somebody from Kentucky. And I turned around and waved at the car as big as I could. Was it people from Kentucky? I don't think so. I think they had one finger up waving back. So and people are like, that's not a true story. I said, not only is it true, it took me a month to quit waving at cars that beeped. Like, it was just eighteen years of conditioning. Speaker 0: You thought beeping was, hey. Speaker 1: Hey there. I mean, that's what we thought that little thing in the middle of your steering wheel was for. If you saw somebody and they couldn't see you through the windshield, just toot the horn. Then you throw your hand up and wave and they roll down the window, oh, that's Bob. And if you didn't wave, I mean, you're a pariah. You were probably an axe murderer who was in our town, right? Or you were just an a hole. I wasn't so I didn't want to be either, so I waved at that car in Massachusetts, and and kept waving for about a month. But anyways, long story short, as you said, I invented a virtual reality device that lets you touch three-dimensional objects, started a company, raised venture capital, did that for ten years, moved to the live free or die state. New Hampshire. New Hampshire. My company was in Massachusetts, I couldn't move the center of gravity too far out of Cambridge. I got it up to one twenty eight on Woburn, and then I commuted 40 miles every day, so I could live in a state that let you have machine guns and old cars and you know, cool stuff. Redneck sports. The best. The best sports. So Why'd you move back to Kentucky? After ten years, you know, of of doing it, it was you know, we had three kids and we wanted to raise them like we were raised in Kentucky. And we wanted to be near their grandparents, like both my parents were still alive, both my wife's parents were still alive and you learn so much from your grandparents parents are really busy just, you know, trying to earn a living or whatever. If you're lucky enough to have a relationship with your grandparents, that's where I think the generational stuff carries on. Yes. And I had a great relationship with my grandparents. So we wanted our kids to live in that environment. And we came back, we bought the farm that my wife grew up on. We built a house off the grid. It runs on a wrecked model s Tesla battery. It's been running continuously for six and a half years. Speaker 0: So you built the like, who built the house? Speaker 1: I did. Like, I we had an ice storm and a lot of trees fell down. How how big is the property? It's 1,500 acres. And it's wooded? It's all almost all woods. Like, and it's too steep. I don't want you to think this is like valuable Iowa Speaker 0: No. No. No. No. I know the part of the state you're in. Speaker 1: Yeah. Pack your lunch if you're on the ridge and you fall off the ridge, because you're gonna be hungry by the time you get to the bottom. You're be grabbing like tree roots and stuff to keep from sliding. But it grows trees and some of it is flat and, you know, in the bottom. Speaker 0: But this is not plantation land. Speaker 1: No. These are haulers. Yeah. So in fact, interestingly enough, it's been a republican county since the civil war, even though all the counties around it have been democrats since the civil war. Speaker 0: Because the geography. Speaker 1: Because the geography. Yes. The topography did not allow for consolidation of farms. Right. So there was no scale at which slavery made sense. You could you basically, in your holler, you only had enough land that your family, if you had enough kids, could farm. Yes. And so that's the way people grew up. And by the way, it's kind of libertarian, you know, I'll do my thing in my holler, you do your thing in your holler. Speaker 0: That's right. Speaker 1: If you need some help, let me know. I'll come over and help you. Speaker 0: Southwest Virginia is like this. West Virginia is like this. Yeah. Because the topography. Speaker 1: Right. It's the reason West Virginia was republican and and seceded from Virginia. So by the way, half my family's from West Virginia and half my family's from Kentucky. My mammals, who's 97 right now, is still alive, her grandfather was union soldier. Amazing. Isn't that crazy? Speaker 0: From West Virginia. Speaker 1: From West Virginia. Yeah. She still lives in West Virginia. But like, we're not that far away from the civil war. No. I know. I know. You you can talk to people who were alive when people who fought in the civil war. Speaker 0: I I worked with a guy when I was at the newspaper in Arkansas. The guy I shared a desk with, Bob Salee from Texarkana, Arkansas. He said, I knew confederate veterans. It's in my lifetime. I knew a man who knew confederate veterans or civil war veterans. That's just absolutely crazy. Speaker 1: But my whole point of that was, she's a republican. She's been republicans, my mammal, since the civil war. And like nobody marries into our family if you're a democrat, you gotta go see mammal, and she'll either approve or disapprove. And she's been had pretty good luck at sniffing out Speaker 0: The liberals. Speaker 1: Theocrats. Yeah. The liberals. Speaker 0: So so you had an ice storm. There was an ice storm on your property. Yeah. How does that figure into your house? Speaker 1: So I already had a bulldozer, so I got a winch, so I could drag these trees out. I got a sawmill, cut these into timbers, built a timber frame house. Speaker 0: What what kind of wood? Speaker 1: It's 17 kinds of wood, because we did it was whatever fell down in the ice storm. We've got oak, yellow poplar, hickory, beech. So hardwood? Hardwood. Yep. And then, we wanted to be self sustaining. Speaker 0: Well, how did she know how to timber frame? Speaker 1: She's very I found a class on eBay for $500 in Tennessee, and I bought it now. And I drove to Tennessee and took a one week class and we built a little shed slash cabin and I'm and I called my wife from a pay phone and I said, I wanna do this. Like, instead of going to get a job, we had just ended like left our company after ten years of working there and we'd moved back to Kentucky. And I said, well, I'll just build a timber frame house. Speaker 0: Like full time? Speaker 1: Yes. Woke up every morning, had my coffee and started chiseling away or going up in the woods and dragging more trees out that had fallen down. Speaker 0: So you you built your house full time, like as a job, every day? Speaker 1: And this and this is what our kids saw too. Like the flooring for our kitchen came out of the creek, we call it a creek. What do mean Speaker 0: the flooring came out of the creek? Speaker 1: There there are rocks in the creek that are flat that they look like the stuff you buy at Lowe's that's fake and I'm like, oh, this is what they modeled the fake stuff after. We it's free. Let's just go pick it up. Now, if we had probably have we're paying ourselves about $3 an hour compared to if we just gone to, you know, one of the box stores and bought it in in terms of harvesting it, but our kids, I think, in addition to being with their grandparents learned a big lesson that wow, mom and dad are growing our food, they are collecting the materials for the house here from the environment, that you don't have to rely, you know, neighbors are good though, right? We actually sent them to public school, which was and we let them ride the bus. It was only three miles away, but we figured the bus ride was important too, because when you get to school, they sort of separate you. Speaker 0: Oh, Speaker 1: yeah. But you've got can be fifteen terrifying minutes on the bus where you interact with everybody. Right? I remember my son, he was like 10 years old. He traded some Yu Gi Oh cards on the bus, and for this like awesome, the best Yu Gi Oh card ever, and he showed it to us. It was a little plastic thing, and we're like, well, did you wanna take it out of plastic? No. No. He told me to leave it in here, and we take it out and it was a fake. And he was so mad. But it turns out his dad had sold me a leaky bulldozer and said there was no leaks in it. Like Speaker 0: It ran in the family. Speaker 1: The same kid who stiffed my son and stiffed me on this dozer. Speaker 0: So where I mean But you Speaker 1: learn these these are life lessons. Right? They didn't lead a sheltered life. And so we grew up, you know, they grew up there. Wait. What percent of the Speaker 0: timbers in the timber frame came from your property? Speaker 1: All of it. In fact, they never left the farm. Really? Speaker 0: So you milled it there? Speaker 1: Milled it there, chiseled it there, made the mortise and tenons and the dovetails. It was a lot of work. Speaker 0: Personally? Yes. How did you, you know, cutting a mortise and tenon, cutting a dovetail joint, these are having done it very difficult. How did Speaker 1: you learn to do that? I kept telling myself, look, farmers without calculators pulled this off two hundred years ago. And so surely, if I've got a computer and some, you know, electricity, I should be able to do this as well. Just dent of will. Speaker 0: But she'd been like a electric engineer, software programmer. Speaker 1: Right. Not a Nothing scale. Yeah. Not I mean, the the only thing I had built before that was a tree house. Right? And even that didn't get finished. Speaker 0: So but I mean, some of that stuff is very complex, like actually complex timber framing, some some of the joints are difficult to cut and the design itself is is complicated. Speaker 1: Yeah. You don't like you have to plan it all ahead. You don't like hold the timber up there like you would a two by 40. It's not balloon framing. Right. Yeah. Speaker 0: Totally right. Speaker 1: Or oh, that 45 needs to be a 42 degree angle. Let's, you know, saw off a little bit more. You can't do that while it's, you know, you're up in the middle of the air on scaffolding trying to get two pieces to fit together. It's actually it's a fun math problem, so I enjoyed it, but is there something honest about it? Because all the fasteners are wooden too. So it's one medium that you learn. There's no like bolts Speaker 0: So it's all pegs. Speaker 1: Nails, all pegs. And once you realize that there's Speaker 0: So there are no metal fasteners in the frame? Speaker 1: Correct. None. I mean, we had to nail the floor Speaker 0: to I got I got it. Speaker 1: And the walls Speaker 0: on it. Speaker 1: But the frame itself Speaker 0: The frame that'll metal fast. Structure. Speaker 1: And it's 46 feet tall. Speaker 0: It's 46 feet tall? Speaker 1: Yes. From the basement slab, which I timber frame the basement too. I still don't even know how to stick frame. Like, I'm like, well, I'm gonna build one house, I'm gonna learn one technology. Speaker 0: It's the framing that your house is Yeah. If you're watching this, it's stick frame. Speaker 1: It's stick frame. So I was like, well, let's build the basement timber frame too and the dormers, like if you paid a company to build timber frame, they would stick frame the dormers. Well, of course, Speaker 0: or or buy them and just bolt them on. Right. Speaker 1: Yeah. I I timber framed that and just like, let's just be pure the whole way and there's it's as an engineer, I thought, well, wanna build a house with timbers, I like how timbers look but Me too. But you know, we'll just bolt them together, we'll use iron brackets, that's the best Yeah. Way to do it. But in the course of this one week class, I came to realize, wow, if you just let go and make everything out of wood, it solves problems that you would create when you start using metal fasteners, like wood shrinks. Right? Yes. It take it takes like six or eight years for a big timber to fully dry out. So how do you deal with metal fasteners and shrinking wood? Well, the metal fasteners can rip out. But if you build your fasteners out of wood, like, it can all work. Speaker 0: It moves together. Speaker 1: And there's, you know, if you go to Germany, you know, there's homes that are four or 500 years Yes. Old to show that it can work. So Speaker 0: So all the timbers came from the property. What about the stone? There's a lot of stone in the house. Speaker 1: Yep. We we got some of it out of the creek, we dug some of it out of the ground, all of the stone is from the property. Speaker 0: How did you dig it out of the ground? What does that mean? You started a stone quarry on your on your own property? Speaker 1: In my front yard, it's now a pond. But I there was an old logging road and the erosion had exposed this layer of rock and I thought, well, that layer of rock must go pretty far. So I started digging using a backhoe. I started digging the dirt off of that layer of rock and I'm like, wow, there are lots of rocks here. And I just I almost giggled out loud when I shoved on that layer of rock with my backhoe and all these rocks started rolling out front of the blade and they looked like rocks you could buy at the store. You know, like, well why would I go buy them? Like I can just like shove three tons of them out of here in you know, a few minutes. And then I had people coming and visiting. Obviously, we looked like a bunch of weirdos building this timber frame house up on the hill and people would come up and they Speaker 0: Where were you living at this point? Speaker 1: We lived in a mobile home, like we just pulled in a mobile home and we I told my wife we'd only live in it for like six months. We end up two years in a 900 square foot mobile home with four kids. No way. It's But I mean, it's actually not that bad. You get to know your family really well. You can hear Speaker 0: It's like being on a boat. Speaker 1: Yeah. You try to go to the bathroom and if you're gone for more than five minutes, like, the wall between the kitchen and the bathroom is so thin. You're just enjoying private moment there on the throne, you know, trying to read a magazine about timber framing or something. Right? And you can hear the kids at the dinner table saying, where daddy go? Where daddy? Where's daddy? And then they had to start trying to find daddy. Anyways, it was a good comfy experience and now we actually kept the mobile home and we lease it to deer hunters. Really? Yeah. It's a double wide and it's so it's full of deer heads and bunk beds now and the hunters call it the lodge which we find amusing. My wife calls it the double lodge since it's a double wide. Speaker 0: Do you have a lot of deer on your land? Speaker 1: We have, yeah, trophy deer all over. What do you Speaker 0: charge to rent it just in case people are interested? Speaker 1: We're we're booked up. Speaker 0: Don't want any weird internet people in Right. Speaker 1: Yeah. We are booked up. Yes. Call ahead. Speaker 0: How long did it take you to finish this house? Speaker 1: It's not finished. I've been criticized, you know, in campaigns people try to use this against me. Some guy goes, he doesn't even have doors on all his rooms. He's some kind of weirdo. Great. Well, we haven't made that door yet. Speaker 0: Right? You're making the doors? Speaker 1: We have made a few of them. Yeah. We're kind of breaking down now and buying a few doors. Now that the kids are gone. Speaker 0: So this that was like your kids wait. So what what year did you start? How long has this process been? Speaker 1: So we started in 02/2003. So we're Speaker 0: Twenty one years? Speaker 1: Twenty one years. And we've been off the grid that long too. Again Speaker 0: Now, when you say off the grid, what Speaker 1: do you what do you mean? We're not connected to any public utility. Not electricity, not water, not sewer, not phone. The the house is totally disconnected from everything. Speaker 0: Did you build those systems yourself? Speaker 1: Yeah. Using a lot of it's off the shelf stuff, but some of it's improvised, field expedient. Speaker 0: So so like Speaker 1: battery, the car battery that runs the house. Well, let's just buy that out of a catalog, you go to a junkyard and say how much do you want for that wrecked model s and like, well, I'll sell you the battery for 15 Why Speaker 0: not why can't you just buy the battery separately? Speaker 1: They won't like, Tesla wouldn't sell me a Powerwall. I would I tried to buy one for years. Why? Because it has to be connected to the grid for some reason. Their business model involves that. So I was like, alright. Well, I'll get a battery. How much different can it be from the batteries in their car? So I drove to Lake Lanier, Georgia with a little trailer, landscaping trailer. The battery weighs I think 1,200 pounds, But here's the funny thing, it's considered hazardous material if you pull it on a trailer, but if it's in a car, it's just fine. So I I hurried up and got back to Kentucky with the trailer. I don't have a hazmat light. Speaker 0: So it was a wrecked Tesla Model s and you pulled the battery out of it. Speaker 1: Yeah. And what'd you do with it? Disassembled it. I paid $15,000 cash. But this is like, you know, I'm I this probably like fifteen or twenty years, hopefully, it'll last. And so I brought it home, took it apart. Actually, I made a YouTube video of this, and what's kind of funny is I had these big rubber gloves that a friend who had worked on power lines, you know, they were leftovers and he gave to me. And so, like in the YouTube video, I try to make sure like I'm using big rubber gloves and stuff and I did like this fast forward, you know, of the disassembly of the battery and I forgot like my two little boys are in there helping me and they don't have the gloves on. Speaker 0: They haven't earned the right to have gloves. Speaker 1: Don't don't put stuff on the internet. Like, I once I I have a Tesla model s, one of the very first ones made and I've got friends of coal license plates on it. Like in Kentucky, you can get Friends of Coal, it's a totally Speaker 0: c o a l. Speaker 1: C o a l. Yeah. Speaker 0: I'm Speaker 1: sorry. So because in Kentucky, that's if you plug into the grid, that's likely where your electricity is Speaker 0: I would think. Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'm driving this thing back from DC. This was when gas was, you know, getting close to $5 a gallon. It was over $4 a gallon, and I and I stopped in West Virginia to charge my Tesla at a supercharging station, it just to kind of troll people on the internet and I made sure to get a picture of my friends a coal license plate and I said I'm just charging up with coal here in West Virginia and within thirty seconds I knew I'd made a mistake because somebody had zoomed in on the picture and my tags were expired. And they started tagging the Kentucky State Police, my local sheriff, the the DMV in Like, they were trying to get me in trouble, and I'm like, there's no way to stop this now. And so they were relentless, and but then somebody realized they had been expired for eighteen months, That I'd actually made it a year without paying taxes, and was maybe likely to get out of a year of taxes. Speaker 0: Well, it's your win then. Speaker 1: Yeah. But in Kentucky, think they make you go back and pay the old taxes. Anyways, what I learned there is like, search everything in the picture before you put it on Speaker 0: the yes. And and others with zesty your personal lives than you have learned this the hard way. Speaker 1: Mine is not very zesty. No. It doesn't seem you've got enough to do. Tax evasion issue here. Right. Speaker 0: You don't have time to be too weird. So so you get the Tesla battery back to your off grid house Yeah. What do you have to do because it's not made for this, it's a car battery. Speaker 1: It's a car battery. It's made to run 400 volts. All of my existing system was made to run on 48 volts, but there were 16 modules each nominally 25 volts and I realized if you put two of those in series, you could make 50 volts. So I put eight sets of two in series and so I put eight parallel a paralleled eight sets of two in series, so I got 50 volts at a lot more amperage than what the Tesla car would normally draw. It was capable of doing that and Speaker 0: How hard is that to do? Speaker 1: Well, I mean, took a few days, but it's lasted for six and a half years. I wouldn't advise doing this at home, like Why? Put it in an outbuilding. I mean, if it catches fire, it's probably like Chernobyl, that mini series, like, don't look at the reactor. God cannot put out he created lithium ion, but he can't put the fire out if it starts. So I would not attach it to your house. Mine is like Speaker 0: it attached to your house? Speaker 1: Kind of. Yeah. It's like a basement room that's not under the house. Like, I don't wanna get into everything under my house right now. Okay. So my wife says our house is my science project and she's the mouse. And she doesn't mind that, but I keep rearranging the maze on the weekends when I come back from DC, and then she has to find the cheese while I'm in DC. But it's she's more like the astronaut, I think, in a rocket. No. Speaker 0: I think that's exactly Speaker 1: right. She's she's only It's the Speaker 0: same trust level required. Correct. Speaker 1: Yes. She trusts me while I'm in DC, and I trust her to fly the house while she's in Kentucky. Speaker 0: So what? She's also an MIT graduate so I assume she is suit like kind of understands some Speaker 1: of the stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Although, would like to have just one thing in the house where if something went wrong she could call somebody, but she can't. She's got to like call me and then I walk her through it. By the way, it's good like marriage security. It's just like She needs If we ever if we ever broke up or if let's say she put something in my coffee and I didn't wake up, you know, the next day, She'd have a hard time running the house. So Speaker 0: so you put these you put the nodules which is basically Modules. Separate batteries. Yeah. Right? Okay. Within that Speaker 1: Within the big battery. Speaker 0: Old battery. Speaker 1: Then I put a computer on it, a Raspberry Pi and I made a little graphic screen and the Raspberry Pi using Arduino talks to the CAN bus, which is a proprietary Tesla communication system. So I use the battery management system that's native to the Tesla battery modules. If there's a nerd listening to this, this this makes complete sense and they'll be like, oh, well, why wouldn't you do that? And everybody else is gonna be like, he's just b s ing. Speaker 0: So did you have to add new software to this to run it? Speaker 1: I had to write software from scratch. Yeah. But it's fun, like this is what I do. Look, I've been in congress for twelve years, my brain has atrophied to the size of a walnut. It actually to a raisin and it it expands to a walnut if I can go home and do these projects, and then I go back to DC and it's back down to the raisin. Speaker 0: I I believe that. I don't understand how these projects work, but I I know what brain atrophy looks like and I know that congress Speaker 1: induces it. It's not a worm, it just shrinks. Speaker 0: So how does it work? Like It works great. Speaker 1: We can run the air conditioner. Like for the first eleven years, we had lead acid batteries and they didn't work that great. You had to add water to them. Speaker 0: Oh, for sure. Speaker 1: They put off hydrogen gas, which is explosive. Speaker 0: Oh, I know. Speaker 1: They put off a sulfide gas that can kill you. Like, lead acids are batteries are bad and they're like over a hundred years old. But by the way, I love solar panels. Like, Republicans are like, they look at me like, you have solar panels? You have an electric car like, are you sure you're one of us? I'm like, well, the solar panels are rocks that make electricity. Like they are amazing things. They they take sunlight and turn it into something we can all use. So you could hate I tell republicans, you can hate the subsidies, you can hate the bailouts, you can hate the mandates, I hate all of those things as well. But don't hate solar panels. Right. Because it's actually given me given me and can give other people a license to be independent Speaker 0: from the Let's get specific about it. So you have this this Tesla battery that allows you to do everything a normal house can do. You can run air conditioning, you've got a dishwasher, you got washer dryer, I'm assuming all this. Speaker 1: Four deep freezers, refrigerator. Speaker 0: Four deep freezers? Speaker 1: Full of peaches, beef and chickens. Running continuously. Continuously. Speaker 0: So so your power draw is significant on all those appliances, obviously. Yeah. And the battery handles it fine. How much propane or how much diesel or would I assume you have a generator to recharge? Speaker 1: Backup generator occasionally in the winter. But I keep every time, you know Speaker 0: So so your solar panels recharge the battery? Speaker 1: Yeah. For nine months out of year, the backup generator doesn't run except for it's like test run Speaker 0: every Friday. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Speaker 1: When we bust out the machine guns, who's in the driveway? Oh, okay. Back down to Level 1, that's just the backup generator. Speaker 0: So your electricity is to I mean, as long as you know how to operate the system, which apparently only you do, but if you can do that, then you're just living a completely normal life Speaker 1: Correct. Speaker 0: With electricity. Speaker 1: Correct. Speaker 0: How do you do heat? How do you heat your house? Speaker 1: So, in one of the greenest ways possible. Like, I think the whole carbon thing is a scam. Of course, it's a scam. But if you do care about carbon neutrality, I wish we had more carbon, we need more c o two. Yeah. And at periods in Earth's history, we had more c o two and plant life was doing better, and we've seen plant life we've seen the coverage of green on the globe increase as c o two levels go up, crop production goes up as c o two levels go up. But if you did care about c o two, I'm using wood on my farm, like just trees that fall down. I'm not even going out and cutting a living tree, there's enough trees falling down Speaker 0: Deadfall. Speaker 1: Deadfall. That if I don't get to them, the termites do. That's right. And they they turn them into c o two and methane. But I can get to them and cut them up and bring them to my house and burn them in a wood gasifying boiler, which is super efficient. You by the way, once you start cutting wood for heat, efficiency, you're like, if you figure out a boiler is twice as efficient, you can cut half as much wood. Speaker 0: So wood can you because anyone who's made it this far in the interview is probably interested in wood gasification. Can you explain what that is? How is it different from a normal wood fired boiler or a wood stove? Speaker 1: Yeah. In a in a normal wood stove, you you put the wood in there, it can be green. You you light it on fire, you get it going and then you control the air that goes to it to keep it from getting too hot. And a lot of smoke comes out, especially when it's idling because it's an inefficient combustion process and it's at a relatively low temperature under, let's say, a thousand degrees. Right. But in a wood gasifying boiler, you get the fire started and it basically turns the wood into charcoal and drives the gases out of it into a secondary chamber that's ceramic because it's burning at over 1,500 degrees. So some of the stuff that wood How do you get wood to burn that hot? You just you deprive it of oxygen at first and and get it hot, and then you drive all the gases off and you put more oxygen in in that secondary chamber, and it it looks like it's burning gas, like it'll be a blue flame and then it'll turn into a yellow flame. It starts out actually Speaker 0: And this is just Oak Maple Beach, this is just conventional firewood. Speaker 1: I burn near wood, nearest wood to the house. Right? Speaker 0: Like Near wood? Yeah. I don't remember that. Near wood. Speaker 1: Yeah. Near wood. Nearest You burn softwood in You can, but the BT again, if you're doing this yourself Oh, Speaker 0: of course. Speaker 1: Care about efficiency. Like if you look at the old timers, they were the greenest people on the planet. Right? They didn't waste a thing and they figured out the most efficient way to do things, because it was minutes out of their lives. Yes. So you start figuring out how to be more efficient when you're trying to be self sustaining. So I've got on my Twitter bio, I used to say, it may still say this on there, greenest member of congress. That doesn't mean I just got there and I'm green. It Nobody I never got any of the fact checkers to come after me on that. Nobody wants to fact check me, because I probably am the greenest member of congress. Who's who is has self sustaining food, self sustaining without externalities. Right? Self sustaining power, self sustaining water. Speaker 0: So you heat with wood. How much wood do you burn? Would you say a season? The Speaker 1: size of this table, maybe four stacks of wood the size of this table. Speaker 0: So this is about a cord, so this is about a cord is four by four by eight, so this is like roughly that. So Yeah. Four cords a year. Speaker 1: Yep. Speaker 0: That's not much. That's impressive. How do you get hot water? Speaker 1: We've got three ways to make hot water. When our geothermal units running in the summertime, doing the air conditioning, it takes the heat out of the living room and puts it in the hot water tank. So we have free hot water from like May until September when the air conditioner is running. And then in the winter, when the boiler the wood boiler is running, that makes hot water. And then if there's ever not the air conditioner running or the boiler running, we have an on demand, this is where we cheat, on demand propane hot water heater that makes up the difference. Speaker 0: Amazing. But you could pretty easily set up a wood fired outdoor Speaker 1: You could. Yeah. But in in the summer, again, you get it for free from the air conditioning. I actually have a fourth way to make hot water too. So when we're not connected to the grid, a lot of people who have solar panels are connected to the grid Yes. And if they have extra power, they sell it back. Right. I'm always depressed when I have extra power, my solar panels just turn off. And I'm like, run around, turn on some lights, know, turn on something. I I don't wanna waste this free electricity. So I got extra hot water heater elements that run on DC, so that when the sun when our house is full, the first thing it does is it tries to charge the Tesla that's sitting in the garage. So the Tesla's sitting there at half full and a solid state breaker in my breaker box comes on and starts the Tesla charging. Then when the Tesla gets full and the house battery is full, I create hot water with the electricity. So I've got like a fourth way to make hot water. Hot water is almost as good as water. I mean, if you've ever gone without water, you know it's bad. Yeah. But going out without hot water is almost just as bad. Speaker 0: Yeah. I I have experience with that. Yes. It's Where do you get your water? Speaker 1: So I dug a well Speaker 0: and Dug not not drill. Speaker 1: Doug there's there are lots of old dug wells on our farm, so I knew it could work. Yeah. The the way they would do it, they would dig a big pit. Yes. They didn't dig it just straight down, they dug a big pit. And then they laid up stones in a circle, you know, that stones you see when you look in an old well, but then they backfilled the pit with stones. Yep. So that extra area becomes like a reservoir. And then they put dirt on top of that, so that, know, when a raccoon poops an extra well, it doesn't necessarily go right into the reservoir. So I did a very similar thing, but I hit bedrock and I borrowed a friend's jackhammer and spent a day inside of that hole with a jackhammer trying to get even deeper through the bedrock. I finally took my friend's jackhammer back and said, that's deep enough. Speaker 0: What was the jackhammer like? Speaker 1: I mean, that's the best argument for for public health care. Sorry. That exists. Because I don't I I have a new appreciation for somebody that's running a jackhammer. Those are those would wear your body out quickly. Like, really quickly? Speaker 0: Yeah. Did you lose a crown? Speaker 1: I did not lose a crown. Speaker 0: So does the does the well the dug well work? Speaker 1: It works. One month out of the year, we're just kinda short on water. Speaker 0: Yep. August. So Speaker 1: Yes. August. How'd you know that? Have you ever I haven't dug well. Lived in this situation? Speaker 0: Yes. I haven't dug well, so I'm aware Speaker 1: of that. But again, you can serve. Right? Speaker 0: Of course. Speaker 1: If you have if you're connected to city water and it seems what's on the other side is opaque to you, you just use as much as you want. And what happens is during those peak periods, that's when the utility company has to work extra hard. That's when the the price and the inefficiency goes way up, is in those peak periods when people aren't cutting back in response to the supply, because the the actual cost of producing it isn't known. When you're making it yourself, it's known. But I've argued that water and electricity, even when they come from especially when they come from utilities, should have variable pricing based on the instant the cost at that very instant to produce it. And then you could have appliances not mandated, but smart appliances. If you're rich, you don't care when the price of power goes up. Speaker 0: You don't know what it costs. Speaker 1: You don't know what it costs. If you're poor and you've got a little screen that says the power just went up, you'll go turn it off. Right? Speaker 0: A %. Speaker 1: You'll you'll say, well, we'll do the dishes tonight. Right? When it's cheaper. And if you're middle income, you'll probably eventually, the market will respond to this and automate these things. So that, you know, if you know the price of electricity, your appliance can know the price. I don't want utility company to know what you're doing with Speaker 0: Of course not. Speaker 1: But you can have these smart systems that make a lot more efficient use of our resources. Speaker 0: So because you're not connected to the grid, to any public utility at all. I mean, you're actually independent in a way that no one outside of Alaska I've ever met is. And it sounds like you're not giving up anything. You're not living in a Speaker 1: Not too much. There are some sacrifices. Like? Well, you know, if it's cloudy for a lot of days and hot, we may turn the thermostat up. Yeah. Just so we don't have to hear the backup generator run. That doesn't seem like a crazy sacrifice. There's some people would think the instant they had to turn the thermostat from 72 to 75 was be, screw it. I'm out of here. I'm going I'm going back to the grid. But it Speaker 0: means that the state kinda has no control over your land. Speaker 1: Correct. They or me. Or you. So when I go to DC, and they threaten me, or try to bribe me, it's like, I know once Friday comes, I'm gonna be back on my farm, and I don't need them. Like, it's not that I don't wanna do things for people. I help my neighbors and my neighbors help me and I I wanna, you know, do public service, but because I have this comfort level that I'm gonna go back home to this, I don't need the job. We're we're self sustaining. It gives you an extra dimension of independence, think, when you're in DC. Speaker 0: What about food? They can they starve you out? Speaker 1: I don't think so. Like, they can cut off my fish supply because we don't raise fish and we don't raise pork, but we raise chicken, you know, meat and eggs, we raise beef and we usually raise a pretty good garden and I have an orchard. Peach. Peaches, lots of peaches. My first peach is gonna be ripe here in a few weeks, and my last peach will be ripe in September. So I've planted 14 kinds of peach trees, so they get ripe different weeks, and they taste nothing like the cardboard peaches you buy at the supermarket. Speaker 0: So so you don't need to leap actually your form? Speaker 1: No. Are you trying to talk me out of like, I mean, this is a crisis I have some Speaker 0: weeks. I bet. Speaker 1: Oh, man. On Mondays, it's like, you know, you know you're gonna get hit with a two by four as soon as you, you know, walk in the door in DC. It's like Speaker 0: Is it weird that I mean, I guess what I'm struck by I don't live off grid, though I do have an off grid camp. But the amount of skills you need to build something like that is is really really striking. Like you actually have to know how to do things, complex things. I mean, timber framing is another level, but electrical, plumbing, masonry, agriculture, heavy equipment operation, like you can do all of that, obviously. So is it weird to be in a room with 434 people who can't do shit, who can't operate a micro I mean, they're, like, actually incapable, and maybe that's why they're in politics, so they can externalize their their self loathing. Is that weird? Speaker 1: I don't I really don't think about it that much. Speaker 0: Good. Speaker 1: I don't think about it. Where'd you pick up plumbing skills? So my rule is buy three books for everything. Because you can you can go to a hardware store and buy a book on plumbing, but I don't trust one book so you buy two books. And then if the two books disagree, what are you gonna do? Well, you gotta have a third book. So I've got three books on plumbing, three books on wiring, three books on septic systems, three three books on Speaker 0: You did your septic too. Speaker 1: Roofing. Yep. Three I get three books on everything. And you read them? And I read them. And then there's the code book which is like, you know, the the it's almost like international housing code thing that some municipalities have adopted and you have to abide by. I just look at that as like a suggestion manual. Like Speaker 0: So do you think now we're way in the weeds. I don't know if anyone's watching, but there are, like, four handyman carpenter general contractors are still in in this. But do you think that code, which really determines how people live in this country, the code, it's not up to code, Is it is it real? I mean, it we knowing what you do about all those different trades, does the code protect people actually? Speaker 1: It protects the contractors. Speaker 0: Well, I know that. Speaker 1: And so they help write it, the unions do. So for instance, the roofers union and the plumbers union, I think have conspired to put as many holes in your roof with plumbing as possible. Right? Because All the venting. Yeah. All the vents. Right? If you try to build a house to code, you'd you'd likely to have four or five perforations in your roof. Speaker 0: Well, I've noticed. Speaker 1: And and that keeps the roofers busy, like they're guaranteed to get a call every few years to fix that leak and it's also very expensive. It's it's fairly cheap to do roofing, but it's all the exceptions that cost money. And then if you're a plumber, that's one more thing. Speaker 0: Like all the flashing and all the Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Speaker 0: Every time you have an aperture in a roof Yes. Like, that's a vulnerability. Speaker 1: So my my roof has no holes in it. Like, I've looked at this, I'm like, well, that's a good suggestion, but who who benefits if I believe So vent your Speaker 0: stove at the side of the building? Not the No. Speaker 1: No holes in my roof, no holes out the side. Have you seen that Opera House in I think it's Sydney Australia? Speaker 0: Yeah. Famous Opera House. Speaker 1: Is it Sydney or Melbourne? Speaker 0: Sydney. Okay. Sydney Opera House. Speaker 1: Yeah. There's no holes in that. There's bathrooms in there. How do they do it? They have the the one way admittance valves like you have under your kitchen counter. They have giant ones of those that work for the whole system, and they're not to code, but I think that's stupid because why would I wanna put a bunch of holes in my roof? Speaker 0: Well, I couldn't agree more. I'm interested in this topic, so Speaker 1: And but nobody else is now Speaker 0: Well, but for the the four people who are, I've always wondered that. Why with wood stoves, where I live, everyone has of wood stoves. And some of them, I have wood stoves that vent out the side of the building, like next to a window, and then do an l up. It's not quite as efficient, know, because you've got to turn in the run, but you don't have a hole in your roof and in a climate with like lots of snow for example, you don't want any holes in your roof. Right. But how do you vent your furnace, for example? Speaker 1: So that I just run-in a typical flue and it goes up in the chimney with my pizza oven flue, my wood cook stove flue, and my room for fireplace flue. So I have four flues through the chimney. Speaker 0: On the gable end? Speaker 1: No. They're in the middle of the house. I put the chimney in the middle of the house because it it's a big thermal mass and I wanted to smooth out the changes in temperature in the house. And so there's where I did accommodate one hole in the roof, is chimney. Cause if you put a big stone mass on the side of your house, there's no way to insulate it from the outside. So but by the way, let me say something like, I know there are some women watching this wondering like, I wanna live in a house like that, that sounds like a lot of fun. Talk to my wife first. Occasionally, have like some crisis that I have to solve and become MacGyver. So the first time I got elected to congress for instance, the day before I went to go get sworn in, the well pump failed. Oh. And I'm like, I can't leave my wife and four kids at home without water, and we have a very unique well pump. What do you mean by that? Well, I didn't buy the one at the hardware store, so you can go replace it. So I went down there. And what did you buy? It's like in a catalog somewhere, like the engineer in me found the best one. Okay. It's not the most common one, but I had to fix it. So what I did is, I found one of my drills, you know, like you drill holes with Yeah. And I took it down to the well, and I took the motor off the well pump, and I chucked the drill Yes. To the well head, and because it's not submersed, it's off the side in a pump house and I wired this, you know, had an outlet on it but I just wired it into the well pump wiring and the drill pumped water for our house Speaker 0: I believe that. Speaker 1: Long enough for me to go get sworn in. Speaker 0: I I've see I've seen that. I've seen drills run winches. Speaker 1: Yes. Well, I forgot it was there. Like, I did my congress thing for Speaker 0: You had it on continuously? Speaker 1: Yeah. And then the the the accumulator in the basement that controls the pressure would turn the drill off and on whenever it needed more water pressure. And so it ran continuously, I forgot about it. I just got busy and like a year later, a freaking water quit working again. Speaker 0: Because the Makita died? Right. Right. Speaker 1: It was actually a Milwaukee hole. It was? The whole hog, you know, one of those Yeah. Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: Strikers. You know, I totally Speaker 0: do with the handle on the side. Yeah. Those are cool drills. So you last night, I just wanna end with this. Last night, we were having dinner and which was really one of the most interesting amusing dinners I've ever had. But you made reference to a story, but you we didn't get a you didn't get a chance to finish it because I interrupted you. But about putting new plumbing in a county jail, I think. Would you tell that story? Speaker 1: Yeah. So quickly, I got into politics because we were living off the grid and I read this little newspaper and it said they were gonna raise our taxes to fund this cronyism in the county, the conservation district, which was building stuff for themselves and not for other farmers. They wanted to tax other farmers to help their farm, right? It wasn't really about conserving. Farmers are the biggest, best conservationists there are, so let's don't punish them anymore. Okay. Good call. So I fought that tax, and then I've actually fought zoning in our county, they wanted to zone our county. I mean, zoning is to keep the smokestacks out of the cul de sacs. Right. Okay. My county didn't have any smokestacks and didn't have any cul de sacs, right? We did the the like the neighborhood in ET, you know, that movie where the kids ride bikes through the neighborhood. We didn't have neighborhoods like that. So we didn't need zoning, but somebody thought if we zoned the county that we would get prosperity because they saw all the prosperous counties had zoning. It's like, it's cargo cult. Speaker 0: Right? No. Totally. It's like saying, we should import some homeless because then we'll have banks. Right. Right. J. P. Morgan will move here because in Midtown, they're homeless. Speaker 1: Right. So that was I was fighting that and writing letters to the editor, and then finally, I quit fighting the guy who was doing all this. He's called the county judge executive in Kentucky, like the mayor of the county, and I decided to run against him. So And you've never been in politics? Never in my life. Also, was this guy named Rand Paul, who was inspiring, who was taking on the establishment. It was his first run for senate, and he decided to get involved in his race too. So just like with my house, I didn't go in partway, I went in all in. Okay? On politics one fall. Actually, one spring, because I had to win the primary, and Rand did too. And so, I actually did a fundraiser for Rand at my house, and when nobody wanted to do a fundraiser for Rand Paul, because he was running against the establishment. My house wasn't finished, we weren't even living in it yet. Sorry, little sidebar. Speaker 0: But you traipzed up from the double wide to Speaker 1: the Yes. We went to the double wide and we said for a hundred dollars, you can come to our pizza party. I did have the pizza oven working and So you built Speaker 0: the pizza oven before the bedrooms? Yes. Speaker 1: Priorities. That's right. Had to test it out, make sure it was inhabitable. So, the funny thing too, we didn't have doors on the bathrooms at the time, we had no doors. So we we did run to Lowes the day before Rand Paul came and put a door on the bathroom. Good call. Because I was like, look, this guy could be a senator someday, and he might need to go to the bathroom, and we need something more than a curtain here. So we call it the Rand Paul door on the bathroom. It's the one room that had a door from the very beginning. Anyways, we did by the way, also this was in January, and Rand is cheap as hell. He had a two wheel drive SUV. So I had to plow all my driveway so that he could get up there, and the problem is it's gravel. So I had to plow all my gravel off practically just to get so for what it cost to upgrade to the four wheel drive for Rand Paul, I like, my gravel cost way more than that. Yeah. It's Anyways, I went all in on politics, helped Rand get elected in his primary. I was on the ballot the same day in in 2010, the primary, 05/22/2010. Rand was on the ballot and I was on the ballot, but I was running for this little county executive seat trying to take a republican out, because he's trying to raise our taxes and bring in more government. And so, I won the election and it was like the most terrifying thing when they handed me the key to the courthouse. Like it's a small town, and if the janitor didn't show up to open the courthouse and start the boiler, which looked like the African queen, right? It was like you had to kick it and do all this stuff to get it started. The sheriff's office wouldn't be heated, the clerk's office wouldn't be heated, and my office wouldn't be heated if I couldn't get the African queen to start. So anyways, I was like the dog that caught the bus. And I promised I wouldn't raise taxes, And I was immediately confronted with all these problems that had accumulated over the years in our county government. And the jailer came to me, who's an elected official in Kentucky. His name's Chris. And he he got elected the same day I got elected. And he was all in on my, you know, let's reform this county. But he had some bad news for me. The by the way, the state government had sold the county government a bill of goods. They said, if you'll keep our state inmates, we'll pay you $32 a day and you'll make all kinds of money. And like, the county was a million dollars in debt because this did not work out. And I wasn't gonna spend another penny, you know, on this throwing good money after bad. And but we had thirty thirty state inmates who go out and pick up trash and you know, mow around the courthouse, and they they get real sweaty and the hot water heater had quit working at the jail. Oh. And so the the jailer, Chris comes to me and says, judge, they call me judge, even though I'm not an attorney, it was the county judge executive. He said, judge, I got some bad news. He said, what's that? He said, well, hot water heater quit working on the state inmate side, and I can't mix state inmates with local inmates, you know, you get murderers along with non support, you know, for Speaker 0: child Totally in cases. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It's like this, we can't have them taking showers together, it's not gonna work. And I said, okay, well, just buy another hot water heater. And he said, I tried that. I got a quote. We only had one licensed plumber in the county. And I said, what was the quote? He said, $12,000. I said, I mean, this is a small county. For a hot water heater? For a hot water, like all of our property taxes together were like $400,000. I mean, $12,000 for a hot I'm not paying $12,000 for a hot water heater. You tell that guy to get lost. And he said, what are you gonna do? I was like, I'll go buy one at at, you know, the hardware store or something. So I go look at this hot water heater to jail, it is not the kind you buy at the store. It's like a boiler almost and it's fairly involved, it's got like inch and a quarter copper lines, it's not plumbing. But I had plum I had three books on plumbing, right? I felt fairly confident. I said, well, if I could find one of these, I'll put it in myself. So I got on eBay and I looked for this model hot there was one buy it now for $5,500. And I'm like, I can save the county like $6,500. So I called an emergency meeting of our fiscal court, brought in the magistrates, noticed it to the newspaper, did it all legally, and made a motion to buy it now on eBay. And then I hit the button, I bought this hot water heater, they bring it in a tractor trailer. I didn't pay extra for the lift gate because I had inmates. The inmates take this thing out of the tractor trailer and we go in and we take the old hot water heater out. And there were three inmates in that closet, right, working on that hot water heater just demolishing everything. So they dragged that thing out of there, and I had to go in the closet with the inmates to put the new one in. I'm like, I only want one inmate in that closet with me. Fair. The the hot water heater needs plumbed. I don't need plumbed. So it's the the other two inmates that were smelling pretty rank at this point. I said, you guys go strip the old hot water heater. I want anything of value on that. Besides, you're in here for stripping copper and other things like Speaker 0: You're good at this. Speaker 1: We can do this judge. We know we know short irons bringing this, tins bringing this, copper will bring this, aluminum. They could quote every price at the salvage yard. Seriously? Yeah. So they I leave the two inmates stripping the old hot water heater and it had a computer on it and stuff and I'm installing the new hot water heater and I noticed for instance, even like the the plumber had left off this water trap that keeps gases from escaping like Yeah. A safety device. So I made sure to do it completely safe by the book or by the three books that I had and I come out of the closet. By the way, there's like 30 inmates. I had to walk by the rec room that had a piece of glass, and they could all watch me changing this hot water heater, and there's like 30 inmates, like in disbelief with their hands and faces pressed to the glass. Like, we have never seen a county judge executive get a callus on his hand or do anything. So I go back out and the inmate said, we got everything of value. There was this hulk of an old hot water heater sitting there. They had stripped the copper, they had stripped all of the useful iron off of it. And I said, guys, you left the most valuable thing on it. And they said, no judge, we've done this all our lives. We stripped these There's nothing on here that'll bring anything down at Livingston's. That was the junkyard place, recycling place. And I said, no, you left the most valuable thing. I said, come over here. And they walk over and I said, you see this lime green inspection sticker? Get it wet and peel it off and glue it on the new hot water heater. Remember, refused to hire the only licensed plumber in the county. They go, judge, you could go to jail for this. I said, I'll have a hot shower, won't Speaker 0: You actually did that? Speaker 1: I did that. And the only reason I'm telling you this publicly is this was how long was it? Like fifteen years ago or something? And no, fourteen years ago. I think the statute of limitations, you know, practicing it without a license as a plumber on a public building is probably expired. If not, the DOJ will be at my house as soon as this airs. But they have also since closed down the jail, like a few years later, they it was a good move. Speaker 0: Did they take the water heater with them? Speaker 1: I have, you know, it's on my bucket list. It may still be in there to So what are they using it for now? It's I think it's just vacant. Maybe they'll use it for drug rehab or something at some point, which would make more sense. Speaker 0: But did it work? Did your hot Oh, yeah. Speaker 1: It booted up, the computer came on, and everybody got I mean, 30 inmates just waiting to take a hot shower, and it worked and worked and worked until they shut the jail down. So Incredible. But anyways, that set the tone, like you could say, well, you're the executive of the county and you shouldn't be wasting your time on that. But I I mean, I had four hours of effort in it and I saved the county $6,500. And I'm like, no. This is worth my time. And it also shows the inmates like, okay, we're buying you dollar 50 lunches instead of the $2 lunches now, because we fired the crony who was doing the food system. Speaker 0: Totally. Speaker 1: And and they were less likely to complain when they saw that the judge himself was actually willing to change the hot water heater, but it also set the tone for the sheriff, and the county clerk, and everybody else who sees that, and it's like, man, he is a cheap bastard. It's like, I'm not gonna go ask him at the NES fiscal court meeting for anything. Speaker 0: Why don't you tell the story to APAC, and maybe they'll leave you alone? It's like, it's not personal. I'm not against you or your country. I just don't wanna spend more money. Speaker 1: By the way, I'm traveling. There would be some plumbing lobby against me next Speaker 0: week Sure. Speaker 1: After they see this. Speaker 0: Well, the one thing I know for a fact is that you will bravely stand up to the irate plumbing lobby. Speaker 1: I will. One one more story about lobbies. So I introduced this raw milk bill in congress and I, you know, food freedom empowers small farmers, it's more nutritious. I thought there was nothing to hate about it. Got 20 co sponsors, I put it in the hopper, I got my HR number and that day the milk lobby comes after me. Like they said there wouldn't be enough hospital rooms for all the children who were gonna die from raw milk if my bill passed. And this is kind of weird, you've got a lobby going after its own product, the milk lobby. So my wife saw all these things come up on her alerts on her phone and she texted me. She was worried about me and she says, OMG, I didn't realize the lactose lobby was this intolerant. Speaker 0: Oh, that's brilliant. You said that? That's pretty awesome. Thomas Massey. Thank you. Speaker 1: Hey. Thank you, Tucker. Speaker 0: Amazing. Thanks for watching. You can go to tuckerCarlson.com for our entire library of everything we've done, and we hope you will.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - March 10, 2025 at 3:23 AM
Saved - March 11, 2025 at 1:18 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Unless I get a lobotomy Monday that causes me to forget what I’ve witnessed the past 12 years, I’ll be a NO on the CR this week. It amazes me that my colleagues and many of the public fall for the lie that we will fight another day. Check out my prediction 6 months ago:

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

I refuse to be a thespian in the Speaker’s failure theater. The 6 month continuing resolution with the SAVE Act attached is an insult to Americans’ intelligence. The CR doesn’t cut spending, and the shiny object attached to it will be dropped like a hot potato before passage. https://t.co/0FdHRYTm1q

Video Transcript AI Summary
Here's the truth about what's happening in Congress: it's political theater, a repetitive cycle leading to a continuing resolution (CR) and then an omnibus bill, regardless of which party is in control. We never address the real issues, like reining in spending or cutting wasteful programs. Democrats want to expand the welfare state, and Republicans want to grow the military-industrial complex, and bureaucrats are being allowed to run wild. This CR is a six-month extension, strategically avoiding automatic cuts. The "SAVE Act" attached to it is just a shiny object, a false promise meant to appease Republicans before it disappears. We need to stop funding things we claim to oppose and address our spending addiction. I refuse to participate in this charade any longer.
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Full Transcript
Speaker 0: And I would call in mister Massey. Can we be honest with the American people about what's going on here? This is political theater. I'm gonna call out both sides right here. It's all posturing. It's fake fighting. We all know where it ends up. This is Groundhog Day. I don't care if the Democrat is the speaker or Republican is the speaker. We always get a CR in September, and then we get an omnibus. Sometimes there's a twist on that. We might get the omnibus before Christmas, but if we're not good, it comes after Christmas. But that's what's going to happen. And in the meantime, it's political theater. You know, we've got some it's good theater. We've got great writers. I wish they just come up with a new plot. It's the same plot every fiscal year. What should we be doing? It's already been discussed. We should have done 12 separate bills. We should have done 12 separate bills. But again, whether democrats are in control or republicans are in control, we never do the 12 separate bills. What did why do we always spend at least as much as we did last year and why do we never cut spending? It's because Democrats wanna grow the welfare state and Republicans wanna grow the military industrial complex. And we're we're eventually gonna get together and they're both gonna go up. I guarantee it. And both parties are just fine letting the bureaucrats do their thing, which should be our thing according to article one section eight in the constitution. We are empowered with these things. Most important of the things we do is the funding, and that's the big lever we have. You know, I've sat through now almost two years of hearings in this congress where we've exposed lies at the CDC, shortcuts at the FDA, unconstitutional gun bans at the ATF, over prosecution of January at the DOJ, targeting common citizens at the FBI, spying by the NSA, illegal mandates for livestock by the USDA, targeting plant vaccine or transgenic plant vaccine at the NSF, and censorship, the censorship industrial complex at the end of which the NSF is part of, Automobile kill switch at the DOT. Now these are all things I think most democrats are just fine with this kind of totalitarian state that the bureaucrats are pushing on us. But republicans at least pretend to be against these things. But what are we gonna do this September? We're gonna fund every freaking one of those things that we have exposed. That is the tool that we have is the funding. Why are we funding things we don't like? We don't have to. Well, it's because we're addicted to spending. And this doesn't do anything about the addiction at all. So my let me let me touch on one point too here that I think is important. Is, you know, a couple years ago or a summer and a half ago, I suppose now, we did something where we allowed the debt limit to be increased. But as as a condition of that, we said if you do a CR that last past April 30, everything's gonna get cut 1%. And that to me seemed like at least a little tangent fiscal responsibility was creeping in. But now I noticed that this CR, instead of going one year and giving us time to do the 12 appropriations bills is gonna go six months. Now, let me tell you what's gonna happen because this goes six months. Number one, it ends in March 28, on March 28. Well, the automatic cuts happen on April 30 if the CR went past that. So that is exactly why the speaker chose a six month CR. So we don't have even the chance, a threat to this town, it's a threat of a 1% cut. We don't want to even this is like t ball. The 1% cut is on the tee, and Republicans won't even swing at it. So instead, we're gonna do a six month CR instead of a one year CR. That sets up this another crisis next spring where we can do another pretend fight sometime around March. And that fight will it'll be the same fight regardless of who wins the presidency and who's in charge of the senate and the house, and we're basically gonna get pretty much the same result. But that's six months from now. In the meantime, we can kick the can down the road. All of these things that we've exposed and all of these hearings are gonna continue to get funded. But wait, there's a bright shiny object on this CR. I've never seen one of these. I have never seen a bright shiny object attached to one of these must pass bills. Oh, wait. No. It actually happens. There always is a bright shiny object, a bobble, if you will. A little something to get excited about. This Save Act is gonna save us all. Right? And by the way, this is good political theater. I do like this part of it, that we're going to see almost every Democrat cast a vote so that illegals can vote in our elections. I mean, that's pretty clever on the part of our speaker to set that up, make you all take that vote. But here's what he's going do after you take that vote. He's going to take it off. The bright shiny object goes away. It's Lucy and the football again. And the American public is all revved up. Yeah. We're going to get to save act. We're going to save these elections. We're going to stop the illegals from voting. Really? How are you going to do that in like six weeks? I think they're already registered if they're going to vote. Some of them probably already voted. This SAVE Act ain't going to save anything, and particularly because it ain't ever going to become law. It's false promise to get all the Republicans half pregnant. And then you're gonna get fully pregnant by the September when you vote for this CR. It's not gonna have this I mean, hate to break this to you. Mean, the Democrats already know this. I'm not telling you anything special. I hate to break it to the Republicans. You ain't getting the SAVE Act. It is not gonna stay on this bill. Why? Because we're gonna cave. We're gonna cave. Is it a fight worth having? Absolutely, it's a fight worth having. Make those democrats say they want illegals to vote. Make them take that vote as many times as you can, and then make them go to the ballot box in November. But that's what it is, is political theater, folks. We all know where it ends up. We've seen it. I've been here twelve years. I've seen it 12 times. I refuse to be a thespian in this failure theater. And with that, I yield back.
RepThomasMassie
Posted - March 10, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Saved - March 11, 2025 at 1:17 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

The military industrial complex demands about $50 billion per year in war. As soon as we quit spending $50b per year in Afghanistan, we started spending $50b per year in Ukraine. Watch where the next $50b per year goes when we stop sending it to Ukraine. The MIC is always hungry.

@TuckerCarlson - Tucker Carlson

Fox News is wall to wall with dead-eyed politicians telling you that Iran is a dangerous “sponsor of terror.” Softening up the base for a war. But what exactly does that phrase mean, and how does it apply to the United States? Here’s one measure: over the past twenty years, how many Americans have been killed by Iran on American soil? Try to find that number, and then compare it to the number of Americans killed by drug ODs. Or suicide. Or illegal aliens. Or carjackings, diabetes and the Covid vax. Still think Iran is the greatest threat? How about we focus on our own country for a minute.

RepThomasMassie
Posted - February 19, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Saved - February 20, 2025 at 12:24 PM

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Calling @DOGE … Congress gave a whopping $1 billion to @CDCgov for a PR campaign to promote COVID shots. Which private companies (social media platforms, TV networks, advertising agencies, celebrities?) received this money? How much money still being spent on this ?

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

The last stimulus bill gave $1 billion to @CDCgov for a PR campaign to promote public confidence in the vaccine. Where did this money go? How much went to social media companies that ban and censor alternative viewpoints?

RepThomasMassie
Posted - February 14, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Saved - February 14, 2025 at 4:37 PM
reSee.it AI Summary
In 2020, I warned about the U.S. Treasury sending COVID stimulus checks to foreigners, not just dual citizens or green-card holders. Now, I see Norwegian citizens in Norway receiving multiple checks—$1200, $600, and $1400—despite their limited U.S. tax history. This isn't just an innocent mistake; it's a clear case of incompetence that persisted even after I raised concerns. It's time to stop this madness and focus on reopening our economy and schools.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Before there was @DOGE , there was me in 2020 warning y’all that the U.S. Treasury was sending $1200 COVID stimulus checks to foreigners living overseas. These were not dual citizens or green-card holders.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Now we are sending stimulus checks to Norwegian citizens living in Norway! At least the dead people who received stimulus checks were Americans. Twitter trolls can hate and call this fake, but I confirmed this 100%. Stop the insanity. Open our economy. Open our schools. https://t.co/2InFlzCEzq

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Was it an innocent mistake or something imprecise that had to be done in haste? No, it was unmitigated malfeasance and incompetence that continued even after I blew the whistle. Treasury went on to send the foreigners the $600 and $1400 stimulus checks intended for Americans.

@RepThomasMassie - Thomas Massie

Remember the story I told you about the Norwegian living in Norway who received a stimulus check? Well now he’s received 3 of them! $1200, $600, $1400. He paid taxes in the US in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s while attending and working at universities.

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