Firebrand: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the MAGA Revolution

by Matt Gaetz

  As for me, I’d rather be reading, talking to my constituents, or going on a date with someone who sincerely cares than dining with some of the money/power people, but members who reject that scene completely won’t ascend the ranks of power. Committees are rated A, B, and C based in part on how much fundraising you have to do to get assigned to them. Freshmen are virtually never assigned to an A committee right off the bat. And you’re liable to end up on a B or C permanently if you aren’t up for playing the game.

  What is likely more corrupting than all the literal money sloshing around, though, is the array of “lifestyle enhancements” available to those who hang around with the lobbyists and industry people: Super Bowl tickets, hunting trips, research junkets to glamorous locations, the sorts of things that can stealthily turn what is officially a $10,000 donation into something more like $100,000, all technically within the rules and in accordance with various limits on amounts and timespans-per-donation, and so forth. “Sure, the job only pays $172,000,” Congressman-turned-lobbyist Jack Kingston told me on a flight from D.C. to Atlanta during my first year. “But with all the travel and fundraisers you get to do, it’s more like a $400,000–$500,000 package. Take advantage of it!”

  I should add that I don’t think outlawing this kind of activity and replacing it with public (that is, government) financing of political campaigns would be a good solution. The government would end up pulling the candidates’ strings, whereas the best political campaigns, the most sincere ones, are the ones funded by private citizens far from Washington, real grassroots outsiders. There are campaigns, especially for newcomers to Congress, funded by small communities, members of Boy Scout troops, baseball leagues, and so forth.

  Sustainable, passionate movements of any kind always have private individuals willing to invest in them, and that should continue. The tragedy is that the big corporate donors have enough sway to make the whole process more like prostitution, or as if both parties are competing for boring gigs as valets. I used to think my party, the Republican Party, was at least a valet for better special interests than the Democrats’, but I no longer think it makes much difference. The same entrenched interests give money to both sides.

  The rising stars of the influence-peddling game are Big Tech, who don’t seem to get sued or regulated a hundredth as much as you’d expect to see in any other industry that does some of the creepy things Tech does. They warrant their own chapter below.

  President Trump represents a real change in some of these patterns, though. He may be rich, but he’s also a perfect example of someone whose campaign thrived on small donations and the passion of individual voters. Trump is a geyser of small-dollar contributions. You don’t produce rallies like his by hosting a couple of stiff corporate luncheons. That man is a real movement, and he’s movement in the right direction, away from some of the undemocratic ills I’ve described.

  Sure, money talks, but talking talks too. But you have to have something to say. And it’s depressing how few do. President Trump knows that raising a ruckus raises your profile but can also raise an army of patriots. Message, movement, money, mobilization. In that order. He knows that is how you build a brand. Brands need slogans that feel real because they are real. “Yes, we can” gave us “Make America Great Again,” both delightfully vague and subject to interpretation. Just who is the “yes” directed to? We “can do” what? To whom? Who is doing the making? What is great? And why again? Isn’t America always great? Like an inkblot, Americans project their private hopes onto these slogans and make them their own in their own individual way. The moms and grandmas who were hand-sewing masks for loved ones during the coronavirus were making America great again. So too were the patriots who donated to the We Build the Wall crowdfunding campaign.

  While President Trump pledged to build the wall, Bill Clinton promised to “build a bridge to the next millennium.” (He neglected to mention that the Chinese and millions of illegal aliens were already coming across it.) I have my own infrastructure-themed slogan—#OpenGaetz—that comes from my days as an attorney, suing governments to open records for public review. Every gate needs a sentry, keeping a watchful eye on who comes and goes. Openness means honesty and awareness, not exhibitionism or naivete.

  It’s important, if you’re an unpretentious, psychologically normal person, not to let yourself think Washington is full of people who want to be your friend—or even want to debate policy ideas with you.

  Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers was the chair of the House Republican Caucus when I arrived, and she surprised me by calling me up and inviting me to dinner. I was honored! I thought the dinner was going to be something small, but there were fifty donors and lobbyists there—which was supposed to be the attraction, I now realize. At the door, the hosts handed out name tags, so the donors could spot us and chat up the legislator of their choice.

  I am seated at a table that doesn’t even have Rep. McMorris Rodgers at it, but, what do you know, her speech to the crowd refers to me as her special guest, and she points me out to the crowd as if I’m supposed to be grateful that they can all now flock to me and I can harvest cash from them. I now understand why many frosh in Congress are truly grateful to be pimped out like this! And if they rake in a lot of donations, one way or another they’re supposed to bounce it right back to party leadership.

  It’s not just the Republicans, of course, and it’s not just Washington. There are so many layers of lobbying that private companies hire lobbyists to pressure state legislators to take messages to that state’s delegation in D.C., as an indirect way to get Congress to do what the companies want.

  In other words, in America today, the lobbyists now lobby other lobbyists, and so on up the chain, without the voters weighing in at any point along the line.

  Irrespective of which party is in power, then, the real winner in Congress is often the special interest that shuttles the most money to political campaigns. Committee assignments and leadership opportunities are doled out to members most indebted to special interests, not true leaders. Congressional staffers even use the orientation process to tell new members exactly which PACs and special interests will donate based on which committee assignments you get and how much influence you’ll wield.

  Not everything PACs want is bad. Sometimes they’re trying to get rid of the same regulations that annoy me. But the PACs don’t exist to do good. That’s incidental, if it happens at all. They exist to give big business what it most seeks—power over politicians to put their interests over America’s. If that means ending a regulation, great. If it means creating one, so be it. Lower taxes? Raise taxes? Grant an exception? Whatever pleases the donors.

  I should know. I’ve catfished hundreds of thousands of dollars from special interests. I never quite met their expectations, but I always knew what they wanted. And one thing federal PACs don’t want is you looking behind the curtain at their corruption. They are fine with your chanting “drain the swamp” and denouncing D.C., but then they want you to do nothing as they make a few cosmetic adjustments that don’t drain the swamp but turn it into their personal mud bath.

  If petty distractions and temptations are the problem, it helps to take a step back and remember how much more enticing the original idea of America was. It’s still inspiring. Our Founding Fathers did not commit treason against the Crown of England only for our generation to turn around and prostitute ourselves to globalist corporate interests. Our Founding Fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of liberty. They wouldn’t have accomplished much if a couple of steak dinners had been all it took to steer them off course. We still hear a lot about “fortune” in Washington, at least in the material sense. It’s harder to find honor or sanctity.

  The PAC donation process—with its expectations of exchanging favors for money—renders public service, which should be among our most noble vocations, dangerously close to the oldest profession. I’ve never tu
rned tricks for Washington PACs, but I’m done picking up their money from the nightstand. That’s why, as of 2020, I will never again accept a donation from a federal political action committee. Not one red cent. The American people are my only special interest.

  I don’t want to alienate my party, and I still greatly prefer the Republicans to the Democrats. But I’m the only Republican returning to Congress to make this “NoPAC” pledge. I’m joined in this pledge by California Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna.

  Now, many other Democrats morally preen and posture for swearing off corporate PAC money—but they still gorge on union PACs, ideological PACs, and something ironically called “leadership PACs,” which are mostly PACs for letting politicians and former politicians donate to each other. Talk about insider money!

  Real leadership is telling people the truth. The truth is not that one party is out to get you and the other one is coming to your rescue. The truth is that Washington is partying on your dime—and the parties aren’t even that much fun. Their ultimate purpose is to connect the real special guests (corporate lobbyists and the like) to the vast pool of taxpayer dollars, with the campaign money and party dues of us politicians as a mere admission fee—and any resulting government projects (including changes in law or regulation), if something actually gets done, as the evening’s entertainment.

  It’s not a great way to govern. It’s not even the most direct way to have a good time. It is terribly distracting, though, and even if you have no firm political philosophy, you would do well to treasure those few politicians who are adept at ignoring it all. Some people really enjoy it, and those are the ones you need to be worried about, whether they style themselves as right-wingers, left-wingers, or—sometimes worst of all—moderates.

  As for me, I suspect I’m not going to be a lifer here. I’ve never missed the distractions of D.C. when in my beloved home state. Every day I spend in Washington, I miss the easy smiles, warm sands, shimmering emerald waters, and friendly greetings of my true home. I’ll get done what work I can for the American people and my constituents back in Florida, and then at some point, I expect I’ll get the hell out of here.

  Meanwhile, like President Trump, I’m happy to fight the good fight—especially at a time when it can make a real difference.

  CHAPTER TWO

  LIGHTING THE TORCH

  Holt is home to five hundred of my constituents along Interstate 10 in Northwest Florida. They farm, hunt, wear overalls, and love the USA, which more than a few of them have fought for. They wear blue collars if they wear collars at all. Their Ford pickups are covered in red mud and sport colors that never run or fade.

  The center of commercial activity in Holt is the Stuckey’s filling station, where my blue Jeep idled in the parking lot. I had pulled off the interstate to secure a good signal as I awaited the voice of the most powerful man in the world.

  “Congressman Gaetz, this is the White House operator. Please hold for the president.”

  I love President Trump. I may never love another president. But this call worried me. For the first time, I had disagreed with the president publicly, on television. He doesn’t love that.

  Earlier in the day, the president went on record regarding special counsel Robert Mueller. He said he thought Mueller would treat him “fairly,” which, of course, Mueller and his associates did not. Wishful thinking, Mr. President.

  How to react to Mueller’s appointment was the subject of much debate in the Republican conference at the time. The then speaker Paul Ryan and GOP icon Rep. Trey Gowdy surmised that Mueller was an unquestionable, unimpeachable hero. The thinking went: we should all praise Mueller, confirm the legitimacy of his team’s investigative work, and pray that Trump hadn’t done anything criminal. Besides, they thought, a President Pence—one of Congress’s own—wouldn’t be so bad. What couldn’t be done at the ballot box could be done in the witness box.

  Everybody looks for a scapegoat to excuse their own misdeeds. They didn’t find any witches on this witch hunt, but they were prepared to drown Donald Trump and members of his family all the same. The president was innocent, but that was precisely the point. The process was the punishment—both for the president and for the people who voted for him. The deep state would run out the clock on this presidency. No “Make America Great” for you!

  The Mueller probe was fake from the start. I said it then. We all know it now. My constituents saw Mueller for the fraud he was. They were right, and I was on the attack, tarred by the mainstream media as Congress’s leading Mueller critic. What was meant as an insult then, I wear today as a badge of honor. To watch Mueller testify is to know he wasn’t up to the job.

  “A lone voice in the wilderness,” my hometown Pensacola News Journal called me as I criticized Mueller and the entire notion of his appointment. Things weren’t made easier by the president himself saying he would be treated “fairly” by the until then beloved Republican war hero.

  When I was confronted on live TV with the president’s praise of Mueller, I answered frankly. The president was mistaken, I said. This investigation should be stopped. It was an attack on the vote and voters, whether Trump believed that to be the case or not.

  “Matt…it’s your favorite president,” I heard.

  “Reagan?” I joked. President Trump was not amused. He moved on.

  “I just saw you on television. I love the red tie. Keep doing what you are doing. Keep saying what you are saying. Don’t worry about what I said today. That was for the media. I need warriors, you know what I mean?”

  I knew exactly what he meant. Though President Trump longed to be free to realize his vision of restoring our nation to greatness, the beginning of the Trump era required a “warrior class” in Congress to step up and fight like hell for him, as he fought like hell for America. To be an effective fighter you need not wear the uniform—though some have, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—but you must be a fast thinker. And too few Republicans know how to think, let alone fight.

  Our first one-on-one discussion lasted only twelve minutes, but there would be many more calls after that. The president has called me when I was in my car, asleep in the middle of the night on my Longworth Office cot, on the throne, on airplanes, in nightclubs, and even in the throes of passion (yes, I answered). Not to mention Christmas Day. Often but not exclusively at night. The president keeps odd hours. Now, so do I.

  He has called me elated, tired, cursing, curious, screaming, and once when I was saying farewell to one of my constituents at Arlington. He swears at me with the enthusiasm of a New York construction worker, but he has also told me that he loves me. He has called to talk sports and to give me advice on my romantic misadventures. He’s called when there were other people in the room and asked me my opinion of them while on the speakerphone.

  It isn’t who is seated with the president who shapes the world. It’s those who listen to him and who he listens to on these late-night/early-morning calls. And given what I’ve learned about espionage in Washington from our government and others, I doubt we were the only ones on the line.

  President Trump and I have an understanding and a newfound relationship that has only grown stronger with time. He can count on me to make arguments on the front line of the fight.

  I hadn’t finished my first year in Congress, but as I pulled out of the Stuckey’s parking lot, I knew I had a closer relationship with the president than many who had served decades and held what Washington considered “real power” due to their titles and trappings.

  But it didn’t start that way. In fact, on the president’s first day, I felt like little more than a distant observer.

  You know your place in Washington when they put you in the nosebleeds. You seldom get handed a front-row seat to anything in life—not even if you’re a newly elected congressman. In America’s capital city, where they seat you reveals where they think you really stand.

  At Donald
Trump’s inauguration ceremony I felt more like a movie extra than a leading voice in a powerful political movement. To the shock of many, Trump had faced down and defeated virtually every major institution in America: the Democrats, the media, senior leadership of the intelligence community, the bureaucrats, and even plenty of Republicans.

  In fact, many of the establishment Republican congressmen, donors, and other heralded figures who were to varying degrees anti-Trump in their hearts and minds (if not their words) had taken the same seats they would have occupied had we been inaugurating Jeb Bush, John Kasich, or Nikki Haley. Proximity to power is something the establishment understands all too well. They were fine trash-talking candidate Trump on secret conference calls but now quickly scrubbed their #NeverTrump tweets. From inauguration seats to senior administration positions to statements of administration policy, the establishment that loathes Trump relentlessly endeavors to stay close to him. They’re established for a reason, and they’re good at staying that way.

  “Fight Washington, Restore America.” This was the slogan that sent me to Congress after six years in the Florida Legislature. Serving in the Florida House of Representatives had been the public service honor of my life. During the 2010 Tea Party jolt of political energy, my community had placed trust in me as a twenty-six-year-old candidate among a field of five. I felt obligated to validate their decision by working hard and delivering results.

  I ended my tenure in the state House as the powerful chairman of the Finance and Tax Committee after having also served as chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee. The priorities of my district were always reflected in the state budget. I took care of my people and they took care of me. This is the responsibility of leadership.