FISA 702 is Unconstitutional | Guest: Rep. Thomas Massie | Ep 382

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Welcome to Kib on Liberty. We're talking to Congressman Thomas Massie about the ongoing fight to stop a blank check reauthorization of FISA surveillance on innocent Americans. We're also talking about endless wars and most most importantly, we're talking about the Israel first lobby's attempt to blast him out of his congressional seat. Check it out.

[00:00:40]Welcome to Kibby on Liberty.

[00:00:56]Congressman >> Matt, >> you're back again.

[00:00:59]>> I'm here.

[00:01:00]>> You're back again. Um, and I know that you have such a huge fan base on Capitol Hill. I appreciate you carving a little time to spend with me. Um, and you were just telling me like we have good news on the budget.

[00:01:14]>> Yeah, good news, bad news on the debt badge. I uh I invented the debt badge about three years ago, but I've observed the same phenomenon once a year and it happens in April and that is when my debt badge goes to treasury.gov and calibrates the debt to the penny, it doesn't go up. Um it stays the same.

[00:01:37]But there's an event in April called April 15th, which is tax day. So I think the good news is the budget is balanced for two or three or four weeks. The bad news is all of the tax that you are paying that you owed in back taxes will barely balance the budget for one month.

[00:01:56]For the other 11 months out of the year, it's a bust.

[00:02:00]>> Doesn't touch the debt though. It just stops growing.

[00:02:03]>> It just stops growing. Yeah.

[00:02:05]>> It's I I think >> all of your tax dollars combined for one month. So, you're saying we'd really have to raise a lot of taxes if we want to tackle that?

[00:02:14]>> That is not what I'm saying. I'm saying we would really have to cut a lot of spending.

[00:02:18]>> Yeah.

[00:02:19]>> To get inside of that envelope.

[00:02:21]>> That I I don't I don't think you could uh assuming that people would be willing to pay 100% of their income in taxes. I don't think it solves a problem, does it?

[00:02:31]>> Well, imagine that. Here's how bad it is. You would April 15th would have have to happen every month. So there would have to be a May 15th, a June 15th, a July 15th, you know, an August 15th and actually a September 15th is when I do my taxes because and people say, "Well, why do you always delay?" They say, "Because if if the G good Lord takes me between April 15th and September 15th, that's one less less time I had to do my taxes."

[00:03:03]>> Yeah. So, we'd have to pay our annual income in taxes once a month.

[00:03:09]>> Yeah.

[00:03:09]>> Yeah.

[00:03:10]>> Not good.

[00:03:11]>> Not good. So th this reminds me of something that I didn't think I was going to talk about, but maybe I've talked to you about it before, but but for me, sort of my my real wakeup call um on why foreign policy and the defense budget and the intelligence agencies and all this money we spend on security is so fundamentally important. is when we lost the Tea Party class around 2015 2016 they had cut this deal you'll recall where they were cutting capping both defense spending and domestic spending and the thing that killed the Tea Party revolution to balance the budget and reign in spending was self-described Tea Party Republicans who said that they wanted to increase defense spending they had to fully fund the war on terror which as you know is a black hole So for me, the Achilles heel, like if you actually care about all those whirling numbers on your debt badge, the thing we have to tackle is all the wars.

[00:04:14]>> Mhm.

[00:04:15]>> The forever wars are what will drain us of of all of our wealth. And it's how empires die, >> have drained us of wealth. And it's imperative to cut that spending for national security because right now we're at a trillion dollars of interest every year, which is the military budget. like our military, our defense budget, if it weren't offensive, if it were defensive over the last several years, it could be twice as big and you wouldn't be paying that into interest to banks in foreign countries. Um, or you could spend it on infrastructure. Look, $1 trillion of interest. I serve on two committees. The judiciary committee, and I love that committee. We have jurisdiction over the Constitution.

[00:04:58]Um, and and ATF, DOJ, and FBI. Uh but I also serve on the transportation and infrastructure committee and I can tell you that the budget there for all roads and bridges federal spending is is less than $80 billion. It was like 50 billion when I got here. So the interest we pay is a trillion dollars. So you could have 12 times as much infrastructure.

[00:05:25]Imagine what 12 times as many lanes on the roads would look like. There would never be any traffic. or 12 times as many bridges, you know, with no tolls.

[00:05:35]Pick pick whatever you want, whatever is your favorite form of infrastructure.

[00:05:40]Um, but you could have 12 times the infrastructure every year that you have if we if the interest on the debt instead of being interest on the debt went to the federal infrastructure.

[00:05:52]Someone has created the equivalent of a debt clock um that I see show up on X that shows the spend since we started bombing Iran. And the last time I saw it, it was about 50 billion, but I I suspect if it was a real counting of the actual infrastructure lost and and all the costs, it's got we got to be about 100 billion in already and we're not we're on week eight.

[00:06:20]>> Yeah, probably. They asked they they came and this is interesting. They asked for a supplemental of 200 billion and Congress first of all if it costs a billion dollars a day that would be at least 180 more days but it is costing a little more than a billion dollars.

[00:06:37]We've not voted for that. So the question is where are they getting the money there? I mean, I think it's uh in large part a depletion of stockpiles that were accumulated to defend this country. So, we're getting weaker by the day because we're depleting our own, you know, stockpiles in order to fight this war in the Middle East.

[00:07:00]>> Yeah. Our ability to to defend ourselves. And I'm told that some of these massive weapons and battleships and missiles that they take time to build even if even if you even if you have infinite resources. So we're we're disarming ourselves essentially, >> right? Temporarily. So um not a good thing.

[00:07:22]>> No.

[00:07:23]>> Anyways, yeah, that's a that's the Achilles heel in of the Tea Party in 2015 2016. They would I noticed they started putting a pay raise for the soldiers in every bill. And so what they could do is they could run an ad against you if you didn't vote for an omnibus bill and they could say, "Oh, he voted against a pay raise for the soldiers."

[00:07:42]Now, the new thing that Republicans like to put in bills, and they're completely disingenuous about it because they eventually strip it out of the bill, is to defund uh federal money for transgender surgeries. that. So, they're running ads against me back in Kentucky because I voted against the big beautiful bill. By the way, it was a big bloated spending bill is what it was with some cheese in the trap. There's always some cheese in the trap that makes it look good. And in the first version of it, they said it would defund uh you know, any public funding for transgender surgeries for minors. And so, I voted against that. But then in the final bill, they put all that money back in and and I voted against that one, too. But what they do is they choose to run the ad saying he voted against the first version of the big beautiful bill. They don't tell you it was the first version. And they certainly don't tell you that the final version put the funding for transgender sex change sex changes for minors back in the bill. Um, but they always find something to put in these bills, these big giant bloated bills that will u they can run ads against you with. And that's that's how they co-opted the Tea Party.

[00:08:55]That's how they're co-opting MAGA right now. If you live long enough, you see it happen again, right?

[00:09:01]>> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's like Groundhog Day. The same thing over and over again.

[00:09:06]And that's a nice segue to to the subject that I invited you to talk about, which is FISA reauthorizations 702. Um, you and Lauren Boowbert and Tim Burchett.

[00:09:19]>> Am I missing somebody?

[00:09:20]>> Well, there were 20, depending on which fight it was. It was 1:00 a.m. and then it was 2:00 a.m. There were 12 of us who fought to stop them from actually putting a fake improvement in the bill because and then there were 20 of us who voted uh against allowing the final bill to come to the floor. So to be clear, these were votes on rules. U although they try to mix this up in the House of Representatives, but these were votes on rules and we stopped them from changing the rules in a way that stopped the FISA bill from coming to the floor. FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The 702 program is the part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that is not foreign. It allows the government aka also known as the FBI and the domestic circles to use the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to piler through information that was gathered in the pursuit of foreigners, but it it contains information about Americans in it and they go in there without a warrant and search it. So, the reason we wanted to stop this is it violates the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. There's no, they don't need a warrant. They think they've invented some giant magic loophole to the Constitution and then they keep inventing more loopholes to this. The day before we voted on this, I went into the skiff, which is a secure facility where you leave your phone and your debt badges outside just in case the Chiccoms are in the debt badge.

[00:10:52]Although I wrote the source code for it in in a very low-level language. So >> that may be the only piece of technology that the Chaicons are not in right now.

[00:11:00]>> Right. Trust me, it has no cameras. I turn off the Wi-Fi radio to save the battery, etc., etc. It's It's about the safest electronic device you could have.

[00:11:09]But just to be safe, I leave it on the outside of the skiff. And I took one of my colleagues, Victoria Sparts, in this in a skiff. I said, "There's a document nobody's looking at. We need to go read." And so, we go in the skiff. It was a letter from Senator Ron Weiden.

[00:11:26]And I don't know how he has the senators, particularly those on the intelligence committee, they get access to things. When a bill says that they have to notify Congress of something, what they really mean is they have to notify the intelligence committee and then the intelligence committee just doesn't say anything or they don't even bother to look at it. And so Ron Weiden in the Senate, he's a Democrat, he's on the intelligence committee over there.

[00:11:55]He discovered an innovative loophole they're using to spy on Americans in a way I can't even tell you here because there the FBI's interpretation of the law is top secret. Okay. Literally there's a a red and white cover on top of Ron Widen's letter that says top secret.

[00:12:16]And u Victoria Spart and I went in there and I we read it. It's very troubling.

[00:12:23]It's an interpretation, a secret interpretation of the FISA law, and it can't even tell you how they're interpreting. Now, when you have secret laws, that's when you know your country has gone too far.

[00:12:36]>> Yeah.

[00:12:36]>> How do you know you're not breaking secret laws? Um, how do you know what your government's doing? Anyways, I show Victoria Sparts this this document and we look at it and she said, 'Well, there's something even worse over in this other skiff across the hallway that you need to see. So, uh I we already had our phones locked up. The debt badge was locked up in a little locker. I said, "All right, well, I'll go across the hall and see your other document." It's a an opinion from the Fisk, which is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. And these are the folks that it's a court in the sense that there are judges but they're on loan from the federal courts and it's a separate court and there's no adversarial presentation of the fact in a FISA court. I think there should be I think there should be at least an ami in that courtroom. That's one of the uh one of the you know amendments to the FISA reauthorization that we've suggested.

[00:13:41]Anyways, the FISA court has said and there's a 100 plus page documented over there. By the way, when when Victoria Sparts got it, I heard some of my colleagues saying, "Well, the one I saw was only 50 pages."

[00:13:57]When Victoria got it, she got to the page 50 and realized there were more pages that were missing. So she she said, "Why does this paragraph end here?

[00:14:06]There's no where's the conclusion?

[00:14:08]Where's the end of this?" And they went and found like 50 more pages to show her. So anyways, when I went over there, I got to see the entire >> I'm sure it was an accidental >> 106 pages.

[00:14:18]And it's another secret interpretation of um the the law that the FBI is using in a novel way that allows them I believe to under reportport abuses of the FISA program. So, if you hear in the news that, oh, under Biden, you know, we had 5,000 abuses of FISA by the FBI, self-reported, blah blah blah, and under Trump, we've only got a hundred, and so we don't need to reform this program. Well, if you go into skiff and read the top secret documents, opinions of the FISA court judges, it says, well, here's what they're doing that allows them to to do things that your law prevents them should prevent them from doing.

[00:15:06]Okay, so now I've read two top secret documents in the skiff and it's really helpful. Uh, I tell you that I was in there with Representative Victoria Sparts because when you go into skiff, you leave your smartphone outside and your staff can't be in there. So, it really is you might think like a stupid congressman. It's just it's just voting and getting elected and raising money and and working for team red or team blue. So, you don't really have to have a very good IQ to do this job. The reality is when you go into skiff, that's all you've got. You don't have a smartphone, so you can't be smart. You do you can't AI, you can't Google, and you can't even ask your staff qu staff questions. And when you get out of the skiff, you can't tell them what you saw.

[00:15:55]And so, uh, Victoria is one of the smartest people I know in Congress. So, when you're in there and you can have somebody check your homework and say, "Hey, did you see what they're doing right here?" And you're like, "Ah, I missed that." Um, it's very helpful to go in the skiff in pairs.

[00:16:11]>> Thank you for joining me today on Kib 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 freetheeople.org/kol org/kol and support Kib on Liberty so we can continue to produce these honest conversations with interesting people.

[00:16:39]Now, let's get back to it.

[00:16:42]Um, remind me I'm not the constitutional scholar that you are, but I don't remember the section where it allows for secret legal interpretations of secret laws not to be conveyed to Congress and certainly not the public. Which which one was that? I don't remember.

[00:17:04]>> You won't find it in the Constitution, but I think you'll find it in history.

[00:17:08]Like I think the Romans came up with this. They eventually had secret laws like you'll find where some >> Henry VIII maybe did some of this.

[00:17:17]>> Yeah. Where some decent governments went off track when they decided that law some of the laws should be secret and that's a problem. But so no secret laws there's no authorization for it in the constitution. It's a total construct and I think our founders would be a gasast and what what the two the nature of the two documents I saw were secret interpretations of the law and you should h you should be allowed to know how the executive branch is interpreting the law. Otherwise, how could, for instance, the Supreme Court rule? Or how could you vote for a representative that's going to vote for you if you don't if you don't know what they're voting on and they don't know what they're voting on?

[00:18:02]>> So, um, ostensibly, congressional oversight happens through the intelligence committee, >> which is called a select committee.

[00:18:10]>> Yeah.

[00:18:11]>> Which all the members on there are picked by the speaker. there to get on the judiciary committee or the Ways and Means Committee or or the Appropriations Committee or the Transportation Committee, it ostensibly there's this process that involves a fair fight. It's not really fair. It's rigged, but at least they pretend that there's some kind of process. With uh committees like the uh intel committee, they don't even pretend. They just say, "We're gonna let one dude on the Republican side and one dude on the Democrat side pick who goes on this committee." And they're and they're chosen, I would say, for lack of curiosity.

[00:18:57]They want people who don't ask questions or for people who are very sympathetic to the deep state.

[00:19:06]Those are the two types on there on those committees.

[00:19:09]So oversight and reform is not going to happen within the system.

[00:19:13]>> No.

[00:19:14]>> No.

[00:19:14]>> Let me tell you another fun thing about these skiffs. When you go down like it's an entire it's almost like an ant uh uh colony underground. It's three floors underground and it's under the Capitol Visitor Center. So you got tourists on the ground floor and three floors under that you got the intel committee and intel staff and they're super nice staff. But one of the fun things about it is after you go through your second like double locked door and you've left everything behind that can take a picture, you see the world's best coffee machine and you know nobody's ever going to complain about this coffee machine like misuse of taxpayer funds because nobody can photograph it. And uh I will admit I indulged in a in a cappuccino from that coffee machine. It was amazing. Is there a super secret barista or do you have to make your own?

[00:20:13]>> No, it's all sort of robotic. It does the whole thing.

[00:20:16]>> Does the whole thing? Oh, it's one of those.

[00:20:18]>> Yeah, you pick what you want and it's it's quick, it's efficient, and it's classified.

[00:20:23]>> Yeah, it's all classified. Anyway, so um after seeing those three those two documents and um spending a lot of time down there, um I realized in good conscience I couldn't vote to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, particularly the 702 program. By the way, this was used to the FISA program was used to spy on Trump and he was for getting rid of it. JD Vance was for getting rid of it. when we say get rid of it, either get rid of it or make it uh congruent with the Constitution.

[00:21:04]Um, and right now it's not. And I've been in and people have asked Mike Johnson, why did you flip on this?

[00:21:10]Because I used to sit one seat away from Mike Johnson on the judiciary committee and Jim Jordan was the chair. He still is, but Mike Johnson was on that committee and I was on that committee and we were it was the judiciary committee against the intel committee and we were trying to get the warrant requirement and the jurisdiction for the civilian US citizen part of FISA does belong within the judiciary committee.

[00:21:36]But there was still that that battle and everybody on judiciary committee was forgetting warrant were supporting uh a warrant requirement and uh now you've got and Mike Johnson's totally flipped on this >> overnight by the way >> overnight. Soon as he became speaker he flipped.

[00:21:56]>> Unfortunately Jim Jordan has flipped on this as well. But uh Mike Johnson was asked why did you flip? and he said, "Well, I went in one of these skiffs and I learned a lot of things and now we, you know, it's imperative we reauthorize it." The problem with his story is I spent three hours in that skiff with him, with the CIA director, the DNI director, FBI, uh, and a FISA judge. And they never presented one instance of a time when this FISA 702 program stopped a terrorist or an instance where not having a warrant or having a warrant would have stopped them from doing their investigation. Not one instance. The best argument I heard in that skiff in three hours. And Mike Johnson was in the skiff too. Uh after three and a half hours I left. I think it went on another half hour, but it was complete propaganda show. But the best instance of anything I heard was from the FISA judge who said, "Well, if you make us do warrants, we don't live in Washington DC. We live all over the country and so you would have to give each of us a skiff to review the case in order to issue a warrant." It was like it's a cost argument. Oh, it would cost $20,000 per federal judge to follow the Constitution. Okay, I'm down with that.

[00:23:22]It's a fraction of their salary.

[00:23:24]>> Yeah, it that seems like a reasonable price to defend the Fourth Amendment.

[00:23:29]Um, so I'm thinking about about what happened because you you guys at least temporarily on a procedural vote were able to stop the train in its tracks and you know reauthorizing >> FISA has just been given in the past and I'm I'm thinking about your your friend the President Trump um who says that you do nothing you you don't get anything done. And then you then you got the Epstein thing done >> and he signed that bill. So he must have observed that I got something done cuz >> Did you get the pen? Did you get the pen?

[00:24:07]>> I didn't get the pen. I didn't get invited to the signing >> Easter egg roll. Did you get invited to that?

[00:24:14]>> No, I got disinvited for the Easter egg roll and the Christmas party. But I do have a copy of the bill signed with that Sharpie. I don't have one of the Sharpies.

[00:24:23]>> Yeah.

[00:24:24]>> And it's on my wall. Um, but you and and a rag tag team of of 20 Republican dissident >> actually did >> at 2 a.m.

[00:24:33]>> at 2 am did what Republicans have said forever, starting with the president.

[00:24:40]Everybody ran on on stopping warrantless surveillance of innocent American citizens. Um, you guys did that and forced a temporary extension of the status quo, >> which I didn't like. By the way, at some point at 2 a.m. you got to decide what's a win and you got to take it.

[00:25:01]>> Yeah.

[00:25:01]>> So that by unanimous consent, which I hate, trust me. Took every fiber of my being to stay in my seat and not object to a two-week extension, but I realized it was a victory. Like if you could get them into daylight, if you can fight this battle in the daylight instead of fighting it at 2 am when every American and every reporter is asleep, then that's a victory. So I allowed the two week extension to happen as did every member of Congress. And then I think the Senate has recently passed that. So we're in this period of time where they got about another week to solve this problem.

[00:25:41]Um I want to read to you um from the president. So you're fighting this battle and this was about that time April 15th I believe was this uh truth post from President Trump. I am asking Republicans to unify and vote together on the test vote to bring a clean bill to the floor. I am willing to risk the giving up of my rights and privileges as a citizen for a great military and country. Like that's that's a flip.

[00:26:15]Like >> you got to give him credit.

[00:26:17]>> Can he give us ours too?

[00:26:18]>> Okay. You got to give him credit for uh cander and saying what you're doing right there. You are giving up your rights and privileges that are guaranteed by God in the Constitution.

[00:26:32]Then and but the premise there is false.

[00:26:35]It's not to support our military.

[00:26:38]Uh again, here we go. They're throwing the military into the bill to say you don't support the troops if you don't vote for this.

[00:26:46]>> Yeah.

[00:26:46]>> Which is completely false. I've been in the skiff.

[00:26:50]The head of every agency could have answered a question and said which the question being named one time this has worked that this was needed without warrants and none of them could could give you an instance.

[00:27:03]Um, so it's a false it's a false premise that you could trade your privileges and freedoms and liberties to to support our military. That's a false premise. You could if you give them up the the military will be no safer, but you will be a lot less safe. And people say, "Well, uh, you have something to hide. You know, why are you worried about that?"

[00:27:30]Look, the FBI under Biden searched a whole donor list. They put a whole freaking donor list, Republican donors into this FISA 702 haststack and and looked for information on them. And what would they do if they found information on you that was porative or or indictable? Um, and maybe it's only because of a secret interpretation of their law that you're indictable. They would invent a new evidence trail. You would be driving down the road one day and you'd get pulled over by somebody, say, "I saw you swerving there." And then they would be like, "Well, now I need to look in your trunk." And now they find something that you talked about that's not illegal, not going to blow anybody up, but they start making a whole case out of it because you're a political dissident, because you don't agree with whoever is in power on that day. And that's the danger of this program. And our founding fathers knew that. And that's why they require warrants.

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[00:29:01]Now, back to the show.

[00:29:05]I think we both support the idea that um one person, one vote, and that you should have to show your ID in order to vote. And and they're talking about using this as the >> terrible idea.

[00:29:19]>> As the cheese in the trap.

[00:29:21]>> Yes. Cheese in the trap. There there some of my colleagues have suggested that we attach the SAVE Act to a clean reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 702 program that's used to spy on Americans.

[00:29:36]Well, how can you have safe elections if the people in power are allowed to spy on the campaigns uh without a warrant? I don't think you can have safe elections. So, it's an oxymoron. It's not a trade that anybody should make. I've voted for the SAVE Act twice. We should keep supporting the SAVE Act, which it's a it's a federal requirement that you have an ID and US citizenship before you vote or are registered to vote in federal elections.

[00:30:08]But you shouldn't couple these two things. The the premise there is, oh, as long as I get this voting thing, I'll give up this Fourth Amendment requirement. Why would you kill the Fourth Amendment for this other thing?

[00:30:23]Even if this other thing is great, why not support the Fourth Amendment and support this other thing? Why do you have to take the Fourth Amendment hostage and then shoot it in order to get safe elections? I don't buy into that.

[00:30:37]>> By the way, I I do want to say uh you know, you say, "Okay, Massie, you voted no. What's what did you have any fixes?

[00:30:47]Do you have any recommendations?" Yeah, I offered three amendments. So, the the procedural thing that we took down at 1:00 a.m. and then the second thing we took down at 2 am, it was to bring the bill forward, but also in the committee that decided how to put that resolution on the floor is called the rules committee. And I served on it for two years, and I know exactly how that thing works. And I offered three amendments to the rules committee that could have been debated and voted on to fix the FISA bill. One is a warrant requirement.

[00:31:19]One is to prevent reverse targeting.

[00:31:22]Let's uh now what is reverse targeting?

[00:31:25]They the law requires and they do comply with uh this constraint that they not target a US American citizen when they're collecting data. But it doesn't take much of an imagination to know how if you were wanted to target Matt Kibby.

[00:31:46]You could find three of his friends uh who that you could target that are overseas or maybe he uses an ISP, internet service provider. And the ISP isn't going to go to a lot of work to separate particular emails. They're just going to give it all to the FBI. In fact, they're going to let him tap in to the entire flow. So, they find some scoundrel, some unsavory foreigner who has used the same ISP as Matt Kibby and use that to tap into the ISP. Now, they're collecting data. And they knew all along they were actually after Matt Kibby, not some scoundrel overseas who may have gone through that ISP or been in the same chat room or be um you know in the same email list as Mac Hibby. Um so I had an amendment first amendment was to require a warrant. My second amendment was to prohibit reverse targeting. And why would they why would they be against it unless they're actually doing it? Okay.

[00:32:54]Wink wink. Um, and then the third the third one was in one of these FISA bills where they were reforming it, they actually expanded it. And this is what's happening. They're expanding this bill and the way the federal government uses it unconstitutionally. Every time they say they're reforming it. And in the last expansion, they said, "We're not just going to do the telecoms and the internet service providers. We're going into the Wi-Fi at McDonald's and we're going to we're going to collect information there. So, let's say they wanted to track Matt Kibby and they know he eats at a McDonald's down here on the corner. they they could find some foreigner who, you know, went to that McDonald's or something or maybe you're overseas at a McDonald's, but they're they get the technical and legal authority to go into those Wi-Fi routers and collect information. And so I had an amendment, this was the third amendment that I offered, which was to roll back that expansion of the FISA program to Wi-Fi routers. And all three amendments were rejected even for a debate or a vote.

[00:34:05]>> So will there be amendments like those that doesn't have Thomas Massiey's name on it that will be allowed to be voted on?

[00:34:15]Ah, >> because I understand you're >> there will be fake amendments, okay, that look like Thomas Massiey's amendments, but if you're a lawyer or even have a lick of common sense and you read it, you're going to say, "Wait, this doesn't do anything. This might even expand the program." And that's what we had to take down at 1:00 a.m.

[00:34:34]before we took down the other thing at 2 am. 1:00 a.m. was a fake fix, a fake warrant requirement that would give the people who would vote at 2 am cover to vote for it. I told my friend Scott Perry, who's a great constitutionalist.

[00:34:51]He's from Pennsylvania.

[00:34:53]I said, "We got to choke this thing in the crib. like we can't let this baby get out of the crib or else the rest of them will raise it. So the first vote was to choke it in the crib.

[00:35:06]Sorry, I'm a very nice guy, but it's this it's a very good clear it's a metaphor.

[00:35:13]>> It's a metaphor and this and uh yeah, you couldn't let it develop.

[00:35:19]>> So So how does this uh how does this play out? You had a procedural tactical win. Everybody's mad at you. one more time for being both effective and an obstructionist at the same time. Is there a path to actual authentic reform of FISA or is this all going to be a political theater?

[00:35:39]>> It's political theater. Um what we did is we stopped the bill from getting to the floor. Now there I anticipate there's two other ways the speaker could get to the bill to the floor. Number one, he could circumvent the rules committee and the procedural votes that are required to get a bill to the floor by bringing a bill under suspension of the rules. But our house rules say that if you spend suspend all the rules and bill bring a bill to the floor, u you need a twothirds vote to pass it that way.

[00:36:12]The uni party has a majority right now.

[00:36:16]If they could get a clean reauthorization of FISA to the floor, it would pass. But I don't think they have a twothirds majority or they would have already done it this way. The other thing they could do is a trick they use on me and then it gets used against me in campaigns is they could write a rule that says we're going to bring clean FISA reauthorization to the floor and we're going to bring FISA or sorry the SAVE Act which is very popular and I've voted for it multiple times. But we're going to put both of those in this procedural thing. They're not linked in any other way other than they're both in this procedural vote. And then anybody who votes against the procedural vote, they'll say, "Ah, it voted against the Save Act." It's not a vote on the Save Act. It's a vote to bring the Save Act to the floor. But guess what? We've already brought the Save Act to the floor twice. They would just do it so and dare uh conservatives to vote against that because then they'll do what they're doing to me. They'll run ads back in the district or they'll have social media trolls who say he voted against the SAVE Act, which I've never voted against the SAVE Act.

[00:37:21]>> Yeah. but they put it in a a rule to try to pass unlimited spending one day. It was a procedural thing. So, I think I'm a little bit of a pessimist.

[00:37:34]Okay, I'm a huge pessimist, but I'm still enough optimistic to stay here in Congress, but I think the speaker will figure out some devious way to put some goodies in a rule in the procedural vote that people can't vote against to force that bill to the floor, the the FISA clean ri. And then once it gets to the floor, it's it's a done deal. It'll pass.

[00:38:00]>> Yeah. it it's either a fig leaf or a a Lucy and the football kind of fake for some of the same people that stood with you in the first procedural vote.

[00:38:11]>> Yeah.

[00:38:11]>> Yeah. Um, and then they'll take you probably voting against that, definitely voting against that, but probably quite lonely in that vote and drop another million in your primary struggle about how Thomas Massie opposes the Save Act, >> right? Or pay raises for soldiers or a transgender surgeries, you know, uh, opposes banning those for children or whatever. They'll that's what they do.

[00:38:44]>> Are they running that ad like they've run that ad that you're in favor of the government funding transgender surgeries for children >> and which is ridiculous because in the first version of the big beautiful bill they defunded it. Okay. And I voted against the first version and in the second version of which was the final version of the big beautiful bill they put the money back in. So everybody that voted for the big beautiful bill actually voted to fund transgender surgeries in the final bill that became law. But the the intermediate bill where they got they tricked all the conservatives or dared them to vote against it in that intermediate bill that never became law is where they defunded it. And I voted against both.

[00:39:29]But anybody who voted for both, which is every Republican except me and and one other Republican has voted to fund the transgender surges because they put it back in. This is so, you know, I serve on the judiciary committee. We have uh jurisdiction over constitutional amendments. So, they all go through our committee first. And I've seen and and voted for two of these that have gone through our committee. One is a term limit bill which would limit House members to six years and and Senate members to 12 years which I voted for. Um but I do want to know who's going to pick the new clowns once you get rid of the old clowns with term limits. It's going to be the same pick people that picked the old clowns.

[00:40:18]You got to get better at picking clowns that represent you. And then the other uh constitutional amendment that we voted for, I voted for was a balanced budget amendment. Here's the problem with it. It's a sham that it because it has two exceptions. One exception for war. Well, name me a year we weren't ever at war. Now, they may actually >> Well, they're they're non-war wars, >> right? So the only the the result of that exemption to the balanced budget amendment to the constitution that's been proposed is that at least Congress will declare war, but they'll do it on the first day of every Congress so that they don't ever have to balance balance the budget. If there's not a war ongoing, they'll start one so they can get out of balancing the budget. Trust me, they would run over their own mother in the road to not balance the budget.

[00:41:09]this the second and even more pressing problem with the balanced budget amendment that we voted on and I voted for it but I I told everybody what the defect was that they said well in case of an emergency we got to have some override we got to have fuse in the fuse box so let's do this if there's an emergency and we can get twothirds of the people to vote for an unbalanced budget then we can unbalance the budget so I went back and looked 10 years back at votes on continuing resolutions and omnibus bills and looked at over half of them and in every instance every year at least one chamber got twothirds vote for for a giant spending bill that was not balanced. So even if you take this balanced budget amendment and look back over just the last 10 years you can see it wouldn't have constrained Congress.

[00:42:04]They would always get to twothirds it needs you. So then the question is what about uh four, you know, four out of five? What about 99%.

[00:42:15]I bet they could is, you know, they could get everybody but me to vote for an unbalanced budget by putting something in there for everybody.

[00:42:26]One way to fix this might be uh to require the federal government to go back to each of the 50 states and get a majority of them to allow us in an emergency scenario. This would be sort of like the 17th amendment restoration clause like undoing clause where the 17th amendment to the constitution was direct election of senators 16th amendment was the IRS. Um this would fix those two mistakes to the constitution.

[00:42:54]Okay. Now that I've described to you two amendments to the constitution that have gone through my judiciary committee that aren't really going to work, but I'll vote for them because they sound good.

[00:43:06]And if they would accept my amendments, they could be fixed. Um, let me describe the biggest change you can make in Congress to fix things, to fix our republic, in fact, and that is to have some requirement that each bill only deals with one subject like then they can't run the ads against congressmen. If you don't vote for the giant bill that spends so much money because it had some transgender thing in it, make that a separate vote. Let every vote vote on that separately so you can show your preferences to the people who elected you in this republic and then they could probably do a better job of picking the clowns because now the clowns can't hide. So that fixes a lot of things.

[00:43:50]>> Yeah. Like I >> one bill one subject at Kib on Liberty freedom is a lifestyle 247 something you live and breathe and wear every day. If that describes you, you need the very best Liberty swag in the market today, just like this shirt I happen to be wearing. Go to freethepeople.org/kol and check out our exciting merch. You too can love liberty and look cool.

[00:44:18]I mean, I I could imagine a version of a balanced budget amendment that solves all these problems you're pointing out.

[00:44:26]Um, but particularly the emergency provision. I'm thinking of the infamous vote where you forced Congress to come back in 2020. Were you the only person to vote against that? I was the only one willing to call the vote. And then um if you listen to the yays and nays that were yelled out, there may have been three or four other nays, but they were actually able to prevent the recorded vote again by doing something I've never before seen and never since seen, which is to deny a recorded vote when you request a recorded vote.

[00:44:59]Um but yeah, that was that was an instance, the CARES Act. Not only was it not balanced, you there was $2.2 trillion dollars out of thin air. There wasn't a dollar of taxes to cover it. Like everything else had already been spent and then some in the appropriations bill that year. They This is It wasn't like, okay, it's a $2.2 trillion bill. How does it cost a trillion after taxes? Does How much unbalanced is it? It was unbalanced by 2.2 two trillion. We're talking about it didn't even have any offsets and it was $2.2 trillion and I was the only one willing to oppose it. Now, if I weren't in Congress, it would have been 100% vote. Listen, you can't trust these guys. They will unbalance the budget and twothirds restraint is no restraint whatsoever for this uni party, especially if they can combine all this crap into one bill. I'm thinking about your your primary opponent who has said it his only campaign point as far as I can tell is I'm going to vote however President Trump tells me to vote.

[00:46:12]>> Um ironically means that he would have voted for transgender surgeries for children.

[00:46:18]>> Yeah.

[00:46:19]>> And the big beautiful bill.

[00:46:20]>> Yep. Um but um you because of a lot of the things you're talking about and and your intrans that goes all the way back to the car's act, but certainly the big beautiful bill and opposing foreign aid.

[00:46:34]Um you you you've stepped on a rattlesnake's nest here and how much are they spending against you right now? Oh, well, first of all, let's talk about this my opponent and his promise to uh do whatever the president wants, which means to do whatever Mike Johnson wants, right? Imagine campaigning on a promise that you're going to in enter into a voting pact with Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell. That when you get up here, you will do exactly what Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell do every time. And Mike Johnson, that's freaking ridiculous. Like what Republican would do that would? But that's his promise.

[00:47:14]So the problem with uh Washington DC is all of these po politicians make promises and then they come up here and they go along to get along. I'm running against a guy who promises to go along to get along. Like I've never seen a campaign like this.

[00:47:31]Like I'll do exactly what I'm told. I will come up here and put on the red shirt. I won't question any of it. I'll do it all because they need a reliable vote from Kentucky.

[00:47:44]That's a horrible proposition if you ask me. And the other uh thing that's horrible about it is if you're going to be a goalong to get along, who are you going to go along to get along with?

[00:47:54]Because most likely after November, Hakee Jeff is in power. And are who are you going along to get along with then?

[00:48:03]And then if you survive one re-election and your promise was to go along to get along, which president are you go along to get along with? Because this president can't run for another term. So you're literally promising to go along with the uni party knowing that the uni party is likely to be led by Hakee Jeff in the House and certainly to be led by somebody else, maybe Gavin Newsome in the White House uh two years after the midterms. Uh, but the rattlesnake I stepped on and uh and with no intention to step on it whatsoever, just walking through the woods is the lobby for foreign money to Israel. U and you can say, well, these are American citizens and they have the right to spend their money. They do. But under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, even Americans who lobby for foreign countries, if they're in any way coordinating with the foreign country, are obligated to all of these disclosures that this lobby is somehow exempt from. And so my opponent's money, which amounts to about $10 million so far, round numbers. And if it's not there yet, it will be after the next four weeks because they're spending over a million dollars a week against me. 95% of it comes not from some MAGA base.

[00:49:27]There's been obviously there's been a split in the MAGA base exemplified by Marjorie Taylor Green's falling out with Donald Trump. Maybe half of MAGA sticking with Donald Trump. half of them associate with Marjorie Taylor Green who's actually just trying to stick with the principles that we all campaigned on. Uh so that that you might think, okay, well half of MAGA is mad at Thomas Massie. So there's some national group of people that's going to fund this guy in Kentucky who's never won a race before. He lost a race for state senate.

[00:50:03]He's going to have this ground swell of donations from at least half of MAGA.

[00:50:08]No, he not even 5% of his money is coming from that because over 95% of his money is coming from Miriam Adlesen, Paul Singer, uh, Apac, and the Republican Jewish Coalition, which is it's it might as well be named the Republican Israel Netanyahu, uh, you know, cheerleading team. That's where all the money that's being spent is coming from that's against me.

[00:50:36]>> I find it fascinating that there like I'm getting a little bit tired of people um lecturing us on, you know, the the sacred nature of democracy and and why it's so important for people to be involved in that when there's such a blatant effort. And I and I'll pick on Miriam Adlesen because she's made it very clear that she's Israel first and President Trump has acknowledged that his biggest d I think she's his biggest donor that she's Israel first which I guess puts America second. And this idea that that these these billionaires can come in and try to buy a congressional seat. It feels sort of fundamentally anti- Democratic.

[00:51:25]But where where's like is anybody pissed off about this?

[00:51:29]>> Um they should be. But here's the thing.

[00:51:32]If you're sitting in Kucky's fourth district, you're just watching wallto-wall ads being run against me.

[00:51:39]And u they rename it doesn't say paid for by Miriam Adlesen, you know, $200 million donor to the Republican party who's actually proabortion and puts a foreign country before this country. It says paid for by MAGA Kentucky because they can start a super PAC and put that money in there. Um, she's the furthest you can get from America First. And yet the people watching those ads, there's there's really no way for them to know that.

[00:52:12]>> They didn't name it the Israel First Pack. No, they should have named it the this ad was funded with gambling money from China because even Miriam Adlesen left Las Vegas and went to China to raise even more money. And um it's funded by Paul Singer. This would like the disclosure if I had my way would be longer than the ad and it would explain that Paul Singer, the guy who bought Sitgo, the defunct nationalized oil company, gasoline company of Venezuela for pennies on the dollar just weeks before we invaded Venezuela, like funded by that guy. Um because they're mad at me for one thing. Not look when they say does Israel have the right to exist? I say every country has the right to exist. Every sovereign country. U this is like when they try to get us to vote 30 times in a few months on Israel on sometimes their meaningless resolutions that are just meant to please the Apac donors when they're in town and in the gallery watching us. Um, sometimes they are real law enforcement resolutions that infringe on your first amendment.

[00:53:32]Um, they want us to say Israel has the right to exist. That's like saying black lives matter. All lives matter. When you when you are able when you have the power to force somebody to repeat that, what you're really saying is I want put in front of everybody else. I want special recognition. Well, every everybody is every life is precious, but no life is special. I don't I don't pick winners and losers, and I've never voted for foreign aid. And I don't vote for more wars because that's what we promised when we ran. And because of that, I've got the Israeli lobby mad at me. And that's the real story. I've got New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, uh you name it. If it's a major publication, NBC, they're all doing profiles on my race. They're all in Kentucky, and none of them are brave enough to report on really what's happening, which is this is whether Israeli uh money from Americans can buy a seat in Kentucky, and none of the money is from Kentucky.

[00:54:45]So, people should go back and watch this. I'm recalling a conversation that we had after October 7th and the Hamas attack in Israel. And I recall you being very balanced and careful not to take sides because it's it's not your job as an American legislator to choose other people's fights and and you you were very careful about that. Do you think it do you think it's is it opposition to foreign aid? Is it opposition to endless war? Is it the Epstein files? Is this a perfect storm of Massie pissing off really powerful billionaires?

[00:55:30]>> Well, >> what was it?

[00:55:31]>> Well, let me let me support the the the point that I made earlier with an example from one of the first pieces of legislation I introduced in Congress, which was in 2013. Now, mind you, this was the summer of 2013. I came in the fall of 2012, so I hadn't even been there a year. and I introduced a legislation to the appropriations process to defund foreign aid to Egypt.

[00:55:56]Now, what was going on in Egypt in 2013?

[00:55:59]They were in the middle of a coup. Like, you're going to send money to a country that has tanks in the streets and you're not even sure who's in control. Why would you keep writing those checks?

[00:56:11]Like, and the checks are big. They're the second biggest uh I I would call them. They're on the they're on the installment plan like Israel. They get a billion dollars every year almost no matter what. And Israel gets 3.8 billion. But I said, "Well, let's see if we could since they're having a coup this year, maybe we won't send them the billion dollars because how do we know if it's going to the good guys or the bad guys?" and somebody a staffer came to me on the floor and said, "We're going to let your amendment go by voice vote."

[00:56:47]And I my first question was, "Well, okay, there's we're we are in the majority, but it only takes one objection to a voice vote. How do you know every Democrat will agree to let it go by a voice vote?" And he said, "Oh, we've already cut a deal with them.

[00:57:01]Their leadership told us that nobody on their side will object to the voice vote if your bill passes.

[00:57:08]And I was ready for my bill to go down in flames because I did not expect them to defund foreign aid to Egypt. And they're ostensibly not a friend of Israel. Okay. Um and he said, well, I said, well, I don't know if I want to do this. Why? Why do you want to let it go by voice vote? And he said because the State Department and Apac don't want to have a recorded vote on whether aid should go to is go to Egypt or not.

[00:57:37]And I thought, but you can guarantee me my amendment will pass.

[00:57:43]Now forgive me for being a little bit green. I'd only been there like nine months, maybe 10 months.

[00:57:49]And he said, "Yeah, it will pass. Become part of this bill." And I thought, is this an IQ test? like who would object to their own amendment passing? So when when it was called it the the speaker pro Tim said the eyes have it and I sat on my hands and it passed and just like clockwork just like the Republican staffer said the Democrats didn't object because there was already a behind-the-scenes deal between the Democrats and the Republicans and Apac and the State Department. Now why would they let it pass? Well, I found out a few months later when the or weeks later when the Senate just stripped it out and the final bill had no evidence of that amendment even happening. And guess what? There was no recorded vote either.

[00:58:39]So, um, they actually got their way by telling me, a freshman in Congress, that they would let my amendment pass. They knew they would kill it somewhere later.

[00:58:48]And that's what you're up against. like the whole cabal wants all the money to keep going everywhere even when they're undergoing a coup because there's somebody with the catcher mitt in Egypt regardless of who's you know in in the capital that's going to take that money and and buy military equipment from the United States and spend it.

[00:59:13]>> We were promised that we were going to put America first.

[00:59:18]does doesn't sound like any of that >> none of the foreign aid's been cut to do with that.

[00:59:23]>> None of the foreign aid's been cut and they're still funneling money to Ukraine.

[00:59:29]Like it's just not a separate line item.

[00:59:35]And and so the perfect storm here is you could I think you could take infinite money from the Israeli lobby and run it against me and I would win. and it wouldn't even be a close contest. Or if that didn't happen, you could take some mean posts from the president and some empty suit like is running against me who has no money or whatever they could scrape from the bottom of the barrel after the grifters around the White House take their 90% cut, which means it basically he would be unfunded, but he would have the president's support and that would have no chance of beating me.

[01:00:14]But the perfect storm is they've taken this foreign lobby money which amounts to millions of dollars from billionaires who unless they've been to the Kentucky Derby, they've never been to Kentucky, never set foot in Kentucky.

[01:00:29]Uh um and you then you take the impromater of the president, the most powerful person in the world, and you put those two together against me, and it's a serious competitive fight that I have.

[01:00:48]>> I I didn't intend to get this political, but it's sort of the elephant in in the room. Um it's it's almost comical at this point the way that your opponent is avoiding any sort of debate with you back in the district.

[01:01:03]>> Seven debates and some of these are forums. Okay. I don't if people are watching this and they've run for city council or they ran for mayor or county commissioner or state rep, whatever. You know that a forum is like a tepid version of a debate. The the candidates don't get to address each other. All they do is basically answer questions. A lot of times they answer the same questions and sometimes you get to see the other person answer first. My opponent has turned down every forum and every debate. By our count, it's seven of them so far. And when they agree, when the organizer agrees to go ahead and have the event, I show up and I take questions. I took questions for an hour and a half from a moderator. I felt like I was debating the moderator last week because there was nobody else to debate with. Um, and then I went to a forum and then I went to another event where the crowd was allowed to ask as many questions as they want after I spoke and they until they ran out of questions because I'm I'm confident in what I believe. I fill out the questionnaires.

[01:02:12]I filled out the the right to life questionnaires, the Second Amendment questionnaires. He won't even fill out the questionnaires. If you can't sit down with a piece of paper and several hours and figure out what you're for and check some boxes, mo most of these aren't essay questions. This is like check a box and send it in. And if you can't do that, how are you going to resolve how to vote on different bills when they come in front of you? The other thing is if you can't show up at the local library in front of a friendly crowd of Republican stalwarts and talk about conservative issues with with a fairly friendly moderator, how you going to go to the House of Representatives and step in front of a microphone and debate AOC or Nancy Pelosi or Hakeem Jeff? It ain't going to happen. And I I'm hopeful that the people in Kentucky are starting to see that that this guy is not ready to go fight for them. If you can't fight for yourself, if you don't have a voice, you're not going to have a voice for other people. If you won't go to these counties, he's skipped some account counties entirely. If you won't go to these counties when you're running for the job, when you get the job, you're certainly not going to go back to those counties. And people are starting to see that.

[01:03:26]>> Yeah. Well, I'm na as a former Tea Party organizer, I'm naive enough to believe that people actually have a voice in their representation in Washington, but I feel like this is a stress test. We're going to we're going to find out.

[01:03:40]>> Well, people ask me, do you think our elections are secure?

[01:03:45]And obviously, there's always some cheating in every election. When people get competitive, they figure out ways to cheat. Um, there are a lot of things we can do to secure our elections like the Save Act that I think we should do.

[01:03:58]Eliminate mail-in ballots unless you're in a nursing home or serving overseas or in a hospital. Um, a lot of those things Kentucky has done, but I witness over 400 congressional seats getting stolen every two years.

[01:04:14]And people say, "Well, what do you mean?

[01:04:17]Do you think there there were false ballots? Was there a machine that didn't count it properly?" No, when they go to Congress, they give you this voting card. This is how the republic works.

[01:04:28]Uh, good. I haven't lost it. That would be a bad sign. U, they give you a voting card and it has your picture on it, but it actually belongs to 750,000 people roughly, regardless of which state you're in, because the census reallocates congressional seats. And um what I see happen to most of these voting cards is the on the first day of Congress, we vote for the rules package and we vote for a speaker and then metaphorically this card goes to the speaker. The 750,000 people who thought they represented they elected somebody who would represent their voice in Congress.

[01:05:11]that person for no good reason agrees that they're going to be on team red or team blue and everything in DC is designed to convince you that if you don't give that voting card to the majority whip or the minority whip that you're not a team player and then every vote is designed if you're in the majority to make sure there are ads that can be run against anybody who doesn't vote with the party doesn't give this card to the speaker.

[01:05:42]And that's when I say elections are stolen. When you take the voting card and you give it to the the speaker, the majority whip, the majority leader, that's how your election got stolen.

[01:05:54]>> So, I'm going to quiz your constitutional prowess one more time because I also don't remember where in the constitution it says that elected members of Congress um owe a loyalty to a president or party. What what section is that one?

[01:06:11]>> Well, there's no mention of parties in the Constitution. That's kind of an artifact that evolved very quickly. Um, and our founding fathers would be a gas to think that you gave this card to a president because you belong to the same party as that president. That is that's a ridiculous notion, but that's how far we've come. I do think that people in Kentucky are going to be able to sort this out. and they don't want a rubber stamp.

[01:06:40]>> All right, let's leave it there.

[01:06:42]>> All right, >> thank you, sir.

[01:06:43]>> Thank you.

[01:06:44]>> 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 want to know more about Free the People, go to freethe people.org.