Live from Virginia Wednesday morning on The John Fredericks Show – weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia, WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 PM) Hampton Roads, WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and Weekdays 6-10 am and 24/7 Stream –  host Fredericks welcomed Florida (R) Congressman Matt Gaetz to the show.
During the program, Gaetz discussed Bloomberg’s plan to pay off criminal restitution in order to buy their votes for Joe Biden in the upcoming election. Later on, he weighed in on the mindset of Hispanic Florida voters and discussed his new book Firebrand.
Fredericks: Joining us now Congressman Gaetz of Florida – that’s a state where the President is pulling ahead slightly but it’s going to be very close. Congressman, Firebrand is the name of his new book, by the way, Matt Gaetz Congressman great to have you back.
Gaetz: Hey, thanks for having me!
If you hear that buzzing in the background, I’m in my capitol hill office and all I know about the buzzing system they mean different things like opening or closing business of the House. But if there are 15 in a row that means there is a nuclear missile headed at the capitol. But if it stops before then we’re fine.
Fredericks: So you keep that buzzer on, Congressman. Look, we’ve got a lot to talk about today. But the first thing I’ve got to do is, I’ve got to get to the initiative that you’re filing here accusing Bloomberg and his minions of bribery in Florida by paying off felons. Paying their fines in order to get him to vote for Biden. What is going on there, Congressman?
Gaetz: So this really begins with The Washington Post acquiring the memo that the Bloomberg associates sent to raise money for their project. And the underlying premise of the memo is that it’s very difficult to persuade people to vote for Joe Biden. That is a very expensive very difficult endeavor.
What’s far easier is going and finding people and giving them money to retire their debt to society through the form of restitution or court fines or costs who might already be registered to vote and then have the ability simply to mobilize people, not around a candidacy or a set of ideas but around the notion of getting their restitution paid.
That is the definition of bribery in Florida election laws. Chapter 104 of Florida statutes say you cannot offer anything of value to someone with the goal of impacting whether or not they vote. And so, like, here you have two principal things: one is paying off someone’s restitution – a thing of value. Well, of course it is.
It would be a thing of value if you paid off a car loan, or auto loan, or a parking ticket, frankly. And then the next question is, is it being done to impact the vote?
And that’s why this memo drafted by the Bloomberg associates is the smoking-gun piece of evidence. Because by the way, they’re not paying off everybody’s felony fines. They’re just going to pay it off for a select group of Black and Hispanic felons who need their fines paid off. Now that is the definition of paying the money to impact the vote. And they admit it.
Fredericks: Okay, so let me get this straight: In Florida, Congressman Gaetz -so I’m a former felon an ex-felon however you want to classify it. I’m registered to vote. I’m Hispanic or African-American. I’m already registered. But in order to vote according to Florida election law, I have to have made restitution.
That’s unlike some states that have already waived that. But in Florida, it sounds like what you’re saying is, you know the various fines you have to pay or restitution to victims and things of that nature. Court costs. Those have to be paid before your voting rights are or reinstated. Right?
Gaetz: So yeah. We take it literally when we say pay your debt to society. I mean we mean to pay all of it. So if that’s not paid even though I’m a registered voter I’m ineligible to vote until that’s paid. Right?
Fredericks: Correct.
Gaetz: So now Bloomberg’s raising money to pay whatever my restitution might be. Debt to a victim. Court costs. Whatever. They’re going to pay that get that off my back in exchange for that I vote for Joe Biden. That’s well that you would vote because they’ve literally written in their memo that according to their modeling Black voters in Florida are going to vote democrat 90 to 95 percent of the time.
Now, I don’t believe that. But the fact that it’s their assumption is the evidence of the intent to use this money to impact whether or not these people vote. And it’s you know this is not the way we do democracy. People should be voting or not voting based on universal standards. Not like whether or not you fit into some like subcategory for some oligarch billionaire to come and like help out your personal balance sheet so in exchange you go and cast a ballot.
You know, that’s what I have a problem with. Like if you’re a White former felon in Florida you’re not getting the Bloomberg payment. And if they were just paying these off for everybody with you know we would know what they were doing. We would know that they were trying to impact the election. But it wouldn’t be so blatant and so obvious as is reflected in these documents reported by the The Washington Post.
Fredericks: Right, so they’re only paying off the debt of those that they have a higher propensity to vote Democratic. So they’re targeting them. So that’s why you have a real case here. Because if they were just saying hey look we’re going to go to Florida and we’re going to pay off we’re going to raise money pay off everybody’s restitution so everybody can vote for whoever you want that will be a little different.
That would be a tougher argument. But the fact that the memo internal memos that was leaked that The Post got ahold of basically is saying that this is a bribe. You know, pay off my debt to a person who is profiled to be a likely Biden voter. I don’t know how much more plain that is?
Gaetz: Yeah. I mean like if Sheldon Adelson was gonna wipeout like people’s debts at his casino if they weren’t voted Republican, I mean they would have the FBI encircling his home like it was Roger Stone 2.0.
Fredericks: Right. Exactly. At 5:00 am banging on his door. So how do you stop this, Congressman Gaetz?
Gaetz: Well the attorney general of Florida has jurisdiction because this is an activity that is crossing jurisdictional prosecutorial lines. So she could direct the statewide prosecutor to investigate this. And look, there may be a perfectly reasonable explanation. I always think people are presumed innocent.
But I certainly think these are fair questions to ask given the evidence that is now available in the public square. So I am preparing a sort of legal basis for that. I will be transmitting that to her today. I’ve already spoken to her last night. She’s a pretty effective law-and-order attorney general. And I’m hopeful that she’ll take this up and give it a thorough review that it calls for.
Fredericks: I’m so glad, Congressman, that you were able to file this and you know maybe get it stopped. Tell us before we get to your book Firebrand, tell us about the state of the race right now in Florida.
Gaetz: The President is surging with Hispanic voters. Miami-Dade County is an area where Joe Biden is going to substantially underperform Hillary Clinton. And frankly, it’s because a lot of these first and second-generation Hispanic Americans fled socialism. Their families fled socialism and they’re not ready to embrace it here.
And they don’t trust Joe Biden to stand up to the woketopians that want to bring the policies of Portland and Seattle to the rest of the country. You know a lot of our great Hispanic voters in Florida are builders, not burners. they don’t like this you know whole Antifa tearing things down you know attacking our country.
A lot of these folks chose to come to America because they love our country and our values and they want to follow our laws and rules and they want to build a better life here. And God bless them for their willingness to do so and for having chosen America. You know, maybe just a generation or so ago. And so I think there is a patriotic flare in Florida, we’re starting to see that will help the President. He’ll be in Florida on Thursday and I suspect he’ll get a great reception.
Listen to the full segment here:
https://youtu.be/Y3zkwjNZcBU
Biden’s attempt with Bloomberg’s help to court right-wing Cuban Exile votes in Florida could backfire against him by costing him badly needed leftist and progressive votes. Biden’s disparaging remarks about Sanders the other day could cause some leftists, including Sanders himself, who had planned to support Biden to take offense and pause.