Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) spoke with Brian Kilmeade about the House Judiciary Committee’s questioning of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Gaetz said he and the other republicans on the House Judiciary Committee were very surprised at Robert Mueller’s demeanor and how he did not even know what Fusion GPS was despite being in the official Special Council report. Gaetz explained why he believes there was a double standard with Robert Mueller’s investigation because they only focused on the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian operatives and had a hear, see and speak no evil approach to interactions between members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Russian operatives. When asked about the crisis at the border, Gaetz said it is shameful that the border is on fire while members of congress are scheduling tee times for the August recess.
Plus, Gaetz on why he won’t vote for the bipartisan budget deal.
Watch here:
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): It is absurd to suggest that a operative for the Democrats was meeting with this Russian lawyer the day before and the day after the Trump Tower meeting, and yet, that’s not something you referenced.
Now, Glenn Simpson testified under oath he had dinner with Veselnitskaya the day before and the day after this meeting with the Trump team. Do you have any basis, as you sit here today, to believe that Steele was lying?
ROBERT MUELLER, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL: As I said before and I’ll say again, it’s not purview. Others are investigating what you —
GAETZ: So, it’s not your purview to look into whether or not Steele’s lying. It’s not your purview to look into whether or not anti-Trump Russians are lying to Steele, and it’s not your purview to look at whether or not Glenn Simpson was meeting with the Russians the day before and the day after you write 3,500 words about the Trump campaign meeting.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX RADIO HOST: And that is Matt Gaetz. The Congressman joins us right now from Florida. Congressman, well done yesterday. Obviously, you came ready to play. Were you surprised by the lack of answers from (ph) Robert Mueller? It didn’t really throw you, but it seemed to surprise you.
GAETZ: We were very surprised by the demeanor we got Robert Mueller. For some weeks there was rumor circulating on Capitol Hill that Robert Mueller was in a more frail state, that he might not have sharp recollection of elements of the report.
And I, incorrectly, lectured my Judiciary colleagues, not to believe it. That I believe — I was of the impression Robert Mueller would show up sharp as a tack, ready to reference page and verse, every element of his report. But, I mean, Robert Mueller didn’t even know who Fusion GPS was, despite the fact that Fusion GPS is referenced in the report itself.
And so, I think it was difficult for Republicans to follow the very meandering nature of the Special Counsel’s perceived purview. Like, Brian, here’s what is still don’t get, how is it within Mueller’s purview to analyze Veselnitskaya’s meeting with the Trump people, but it’s not in Robert Mueller’s purview to analyze the very same lawyer’s interactions with the Clinton people the day before and the day after? I still am at a loss from it.
KILMEADE: Now, could it be because Horowitz told him to back out of it, I got this? Could it be that Durham told him to back out of this, he’s got this? Could it be that Barr did?
GAETZ: No, I mean because first of all, Barr wasn’t even the Attorney General when these decisions were being made about where to have the Special Counsel focus their investigative activity. There was no investigative activity around these issues. And remember, the inspector general can illuminate facts, but the inspector general has no ability to charge crimes. And so in my meetings with the inspector general, he’s always eager to have prosecutors review his work and then take it to the next logical step.
It also highlights the double standard in the Mueller team, because where people associated with the Trump campaign allegedly lied like Manafort, Stone, Gates, Papadopoulos; I mean the book was thrown at them.
But when people associated with the anti-Trump movement were meeting with Russians or lying or taking lies from Russian and shoveling them in to our intelligence community, Mueller had a hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil approach. And that’s probably because so many of the people assembled on his team had such hatred for Donald Trump.
KILMEADE: Talking to Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida. And I know the president appreciates the way you watched his back. But I actually think you’re (ph) just pursuing answers and just knew the case well enough to be able to go wherever the answers led you. And they basically tried to stop you with the lack of answers.
So Congressman, do you believe that the case is closed? When they first rolled out the Mueller report and Barr made his summation, they said OK, case closed. It wasn’t. Do you believe it’s closed now?
GAETZ: I think it is to the American people, and frankly has been for some time. But we see some hints that Democrats are going to continue their presidential harassment.
In Nancy Pelosi’s press conference yesterday — which I just got to say, like her going out there with Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff, they looked like they had just been at a funeral. I mean just the body language. They knew that they were crestfallen at the consequence of Mueller’s very poor performance and poor understanding of his own report.
But she said “Well, now we look to the courts.” And Pelosi continued to highlight the legal activities in the court system that Democrats were pursuing to continue to harass the president. So, I think they’re so invested in this, like, Russia narrative that they just can’t let it go.
I mean they’re — it’s like they’ve grabbed on to a live wire, and it’s electrocuting them, but they just can’t release their grip on something that’ll be very harmful to them in the upcoming election.
KILMEADE: I know. But you guys have to do immigration. And I’m not talking about comprehensive, you got to get together on some type of asylum deal, and almost everyone’s seen the border and knows how bad it is. We seem to be getting over the partisanship (ph) but everyone just went on vacation.
GAETZ: It really is shameful that the border is on fire and members of Congress are scheduling their August tea times, because we won’t be here to do the work that is necessary. Just yesterday we saw legal rulings come down that are going to harm the president’s ability to bring some commonsense to these asylum laws. And I mean Brian; the border is a humanitarian crisis because our laws themselves are a humanitarian crisis.
Instead of requiring people to show up at our border with legal documents, we instead just require them to present a trafficked child. And that is sickening to me, that we continue to see thousands of false families, stories of small children being stolen, rented, trafficked, sold into the arms of smugglers.
And that is not a consequence of the cartels. That is a consequence of our laws. If our laws didn’t treat people better when they showed up with a trafficked child, then people would stop doing that. And so, I — there are bipartisan solutions here, Brian–
KILMEADE: Yes.
GAETZ: We’ve got Democrats who — predominantly are border state Democrats who are trying to get legislation heard before the full House to require people to claim asylum in their home countries.
But the Venezuela wing of the Democratic Party, the open borders free everything wing of the Democratic Party, is blocking consideration of reasonable bipartisan fixes to our asylum laws.
KILMEADE: Well, I guess so, because nothing’s being done, but I do sense that there might be — Congressman Cuellar, in particular gets it. Congressman, have you had a chance to speak to the president?
GAETZ: I have. Yes, I spoke to him yesterday. He was in a very high spirits as a consequence of the Democrats’ effort to continue to delegitimize his presidency that seemed to really fall flat.
KILMEADE: He, today, is saying, sign onto this — to this compromised to bill to lift the debt ceiling and smash the budget gaps. Will you sign on?
GAETZ: No, I love the president, but that’s a bad deal, Brian. I mean, this budget deal is going to suck $1 trillion out of our economy to fund the large maw of government. And we continue to be unwilling to make the zero sum decision to prioritize the things that are important, like our military, our vets, border security, and then to do reforms to some of these just massive entitlement systems we have, that are bleeding our country dry.
I’m one of the youngest members of Congress, and I think history will judge very harshly those of us who didn’t try to reduce spending.
KILMEADE: But, how are you reducing it? I mean, what do you expect him to do?
GAETZ: Well, we’re not. I mean, that’s the bad — the bad part of the deal is that we made no choices, we just funded everything, and we’re just going to keep printing money — and I think that we should be cutting Medicaid. I think that we should be block granting Medicaid to the states, so that they can come up with cost saving solutions —
KILMEADE: Right.
GAETZ: — on healthcare —
KILMEADE: But you know that’s not going to happen before the debt ceiling needs to be raised. All right, you’re not going to sign for it, but let’s see if there’s enough votes to get through it, or else it will be another budget impasse where the government shuts down and everyone’s angry. Congressman Matt Gaetz, thank so much –
