Precaution on television for that. This is how we prevail with joy. And how an exciting president is leading away. We now invite you to enjoy our Virtual Program coming to you from our air force pavilion Leadership Academy oval office with congressman matt mates jan gates. And john hi bush. Congressman matt gates. Welcome too the library. I wish we had you here and not social distance as you are on the different coast. What a terrific book. Congratulations. Sweetie thank you so much it was a joy writing it. Particularly a joy to participate in a life and trim vibrant movement in our politics today. Whether one is on the political right or political left, what we see is a lot of energy, passion and this he hasnt. I was glad to reflect on my perspective. Host i think i read in the book you love sports for you like baseball, he likes sports. I was a kid is in the baseball a lot. There is a book that came out maybe youve even read it it was by a pitcher for the yankees, same as jim boutin. The book was called ball four. I dont if youre familiar with it. I want to read you an excerpt. When i saw this it reminded me so much of him in the book that you have written. The book was a frank insiders look at professional sports team covering the off the field side of baseball life including obscene jokes, drunken tom cutting of the players, routine abuse, approved by himself upon its publication baseball commissioner called ball for detrimental to baseball and tried to force boutin to sign a statement saying everything was fictional. Boutin refused. When i read your book, congressman, i thought this was so refreshing. Heres a member of congress he puts himself out there. And fights the truth and what hes actually seeing. Rather than the usual stuff weve seen. There is a fearlessness that i dont think we see very often. Especially with younger members like yourself. Speak to thank you for that. I laid there the experiences ive had in congress. And frankly washington remains a deeply corrupt place or people have to pay for committee assignments. For leadership opportunities to create a sense of upward mobility within the institution. While i have great reference for Public Service of profession, my father was a public servants. My grandfather was a public servant. I do believe it is noble to choose to serve your neighbors in your community. I fear the noblest profession bearing a striking resemblance to the oldest profession of the way more and more politicians are exchanging money for favors. It is why i am the only republican in the congress now who was sworn off donations from all federal Political Action committees. I dont know how a member of congress can take money from pacs and then tell their constituents that there are not strings attached. they actually create oxygen and space for nontraditional members like myself to choose a different way to serve. And for me that is meant a lot of commentary and media. Matt it spent a lot of work in the Digital Space but maybe not so much the normal glad handing. In the elbow rubbing that you see in different generations from washington. Host have ever had any comparisons made to your congressman, your kind of like newt gingrich, in his back winter days. Matt even more than news gingrich. But i think that it did bring a certain vigor to the place. A certain effort to reform. In sort of the practices really clean into the paper plate and elements of washington. When you write a tellall about congress, usually masculine congress. That is a little different about my book is that i am still there. But i think to address the generational challenges we face, when they got on the writer on the left to do think how we deal with digital platforms and the environment and climate change. These are generational challenges. It will require bit of a political realignment to solve them. I think that re treating to our cars of the republican versus democrat is not all that productive. In some of my friendships like alexandria cortez and katie hill. Because i think at times, you need to listen to one another. And to acknowledge their maybe anything to disagree on but if there are some things you can agree on, then you want to put those at the front of the list. Host i want to ask you about katie and alexandria, you cover both of them in your book really well. Are you a natural born politician. Know your dad, he was a politician. Are you a natural born politician. You can figure out how to achieve celebrity status in the social media age. Or maybe it is the reverse. Your natural born, like ronald ragan, like a great actor just figure out how to work make it work in politics. Matt well i started in the state legislature. I write about being a 26 yearold who thought they could contribute to a new generation of Republican Leadership in the state of florida. That is serving a number of capacities there so i think that my first passion is policy. In ensuring that we actually put the policies in place that can lift up all americans. And i do believe that you have to animate those policies. With a certain showmanship. They convinced members of congress in the middle of the night to go to the floor and give these roaring ovations to empty rooms targeted normal people would think that would be a sign of mental. Thats actually a week helped people move up in Congress Rather than to speak to an anteroom, i think you gotta be able to be on television, the radio, on the internet ensuring of fashion and visions to include people and invite people to a movement. And thats what i try to do with the firebrand. Firebranddispatches from the front lines of the maga revolution. And i try to do with my service. Host sort of a mathematical formula for how much of the ore equates to in terms of the value of advertising. It seems like you have already figured that out. It. Matt there are a number of those algorithms that will break it down for me. The objective. I want to contribute to the discussion in the debate. Come from the district. Right about actually people who have served in military. If there certain fighting spirit that comes from a military district. That why never with that area, i do believe that same sense of patriotism can convert to debates that you have in the floor of the congress or even with possible Television Host at times. Write about the decision i made much is just appear with friendly interviewers but to go on with you or cnn or msnbc where they might not hold my politics near and dear to the hearts. I think its a sign of a healthy democracy to show that we can actually have this disagreements. And if they can be interesting. They can be or tell a lot about what we are trying to in the country. I told my friend that you can win all of your home games and also when youre on the road, and acknowledges at times we need to put yourself out there, you can sometimes come away from some of those rhetorical battles them and sparkle actually think america is all the better for it. If we engage in that. Host have got it. Would you say that in congress today, is not the currency of power. We are in the social media age. In some parts family in this modern age. Would you agree. Matt what a great. I think that creates opportunities. When you say the people get to run the place possibly those who have been around the longest. Then it creates a hazard is a lot of ambitious people that want to do something else, they leave. So the ones who have been around for 20 or 30 years are the ones who for congress is sort of the best they will ever do. In the musty summit telegraph. In retards the type of innovation and creativity and think our country needs to meet these big new challenges. Right and only a fool would expect an institution to talk the octogenarians to go and solve the major challenges that will impact the new generation of americans. I am encouraged by him people wanting to serve. Whether they are on the right of the left. I think we actually have the most socially interconnected generation in all of human history, in the millennials coming into more political power. We should view that is a great opportunity to actually Work Together. If we have an environment, that will affect us all equally. If we have a country that is leveraging or engage or unfocused in the forever war some of the drains the soul of the nation across any ideological or political spectrum. I think that sense of common destiny can create unions even in a dynamic like you described where at times confrontations can lead to that type of morality the type of bottomline attention. Host while how has your book gone over with your colleagues in congress. Or do you not really care. It seems like and i will go back to needs days. You had the courage to show. I get the sense is not the case anymore. Matt i didnt really start with any friends in congress so i havent missed the ones who have lost. Its a when you write a book about others, and chapter one is excessive money. If you get view of your colleagues as some had challenges with both. Not that either should be in either way in any way discriminated against read i think a plethora of us to be enjoyed to. That ovations on the country outside. I dont find checking the republicans when they do the wrong thing. Right in the book about senator who i think made a really bad mistake when choosing his own personal benefit and its own stock portfolio in well over and truth of the American People. So i will defend democrats jim hill in alexandria ocasiocortez. And think of being treated very unfairly. And i will back the republicans that if i think they are engaged in miss you sort what we had to do for america. And i think that we need more of that in politics. We need more of an ability to recognize that would not two separate teams wearing different jerseys print were all wearing the american jersey. But can have different ideas about how to run it. But at the end of days, the got to do this together. Host the politicals spectrum for example who you write about, is it fair to say any both of kind of blood the same playbooks preempt similar operating styles. Shes just as effective on the left of the style as you are on the right. Matt not only do i recognize theres start our power but i remember, donald trump quite literally judged his own talent competitions. He is a star when he sees one. Pain is a star. Which is sort of why he engages with her at times. I know shes a socialist but he also known she is not us a lot. And i think are far too any in washington and both parties who actually believe that nothing, there is vessel through which specialinterest operates. If someone is sincere in their beliefs, even if there are not my beliefs, can usually a way to work with someone on a policy issue that will help people. We have worked together on legislation. Weve researched out veterans do with ptsd. It and similarly i think their people in my own party that i have a very hard time supporting because theyre more interested in being a valet or special interest or an Industry Group rather than they the values that they can pan out before their constituents. Host worked on capital hill the entire reagan years. According to your book. Honoring part of this. I hope to represent them meaning your constituents, and the best. But also represent them at the worst. And i begged him for forgiveness. And it reminded me of a conclusion i came to after years on the hill and that was congress, if it is actually perfect reflection of american society. Drug addicts for different data groups than you have brilliant leaders and humanitarians. Do you agree with that. Matt i dont hold myself out before my constituents of the country as a perfect land. On broadband. And i think that when we all recognize that, we can come a little bit more of acceptance of one another and listen each other a little more previously the politicians had health the perfect family, the perfect background. Note stars and scrubs on the record. Now donald trump as president. For somebody who i think would acknowledge that throughout his life, there are times when he has probably fallen short of his own standards. We all do. And i think we get rid of the pretense, and allows us to be more real and more rep. More connected to her constituents. So yes, there are people in florida who at times do weird stuff and similar line in the book that i acknowledges George W Walker bush, said that he is a quiet man. Maybe im a bit of a strange man. I can hear strange voices of the country but thats okay because at times, it is the art and the weird and the interesting among us, who can do exceptional things. I think we can celebrate that. We can see a little more racist to another another, recognizing we all have something to contribute. Cedric well put. Kidney Health for a moment. Can you focus to some extent on the book. I was interested because she was hard congresswoman. She seemed to me to be like a talented and tough operator. And i wonder if youre in your mind, things got tough. Did she have hit the road because of democrat, leadership and speaker pelosi, were concerned. Or do you think she really came to that conclusion as an individual to head home. Matt yes katie hills circumstance, her husband released private photos that were taken they were deeply embarrassing. And she did resign from congress. I encouraged her not to brightest and katie, acknowledge the fact that there were photos that maybe shouldnt have but that you are there to put the people first. Do that and what she said was each and every day, she was riddled with anxiety over what next photo or next admission might come out of that form a relationship. What surprised me so much is that of all of the women in the United States congress, there was not one is stepped up to defend her initially. The sisterhood of the traveling ants was not there for one of their own. Even though they were quite willing to demonize the president for his own misdeeds they had perceived. So i just thought it was a human thing to be there for my coworker was being attacked. I was really surprised in the katie tail endeavor, her actions as much as it was the unwillingness particularly of her female colleagues to have her back. Host on the leading edge of millennials at the edge of congress. Do you see the attitudes of changing on capitol hill as kind of less of a tube described. Matt i would definitely say that the younger members of congress are more connected to one another than the older members of congress are. And i think at times, and environment does not embrace term limits allow these long standing marriages paralyze progress in our country. We have these old, somebody said something to somebody 12 years ago now they wont Work Together on budgeting or something. I think him or people theres a willingness to say, we grew up, sharing everywhere halloween caution we were in every instant hot take that we had in symbiosis social media posts. And then theres kind of inability to to come back together and reformulate the human bonds that are important to all of us. So do think that we can tackle some of those challenges. I think the challenges that we have to face are very different for my generation. I think the baby boomer generation white house the presence of the digital platforms in the way that we will have to tackle them. Now that will impact peoples lives. And climate change, as to whether or not its over, my generation is dealing with the reality of the changing climate and how that impacts people. So i think that we can get past some of the old dogmas and move forward to progress that is i think very utilitarian and its impact. Host you have a chapter called two parties and one scam. You cover a lot of issues in there. What about the republican respective, are there any republicans left in the house on the senate that give a about the federal deficit because it just seems like the republicans have just lost their way in the spending. Im wondering about that having served in the administration. Theres no distinguishing of the two parties. It seems semi wrong. Matt you are not. Her friend rand paul has a great sync that when the democrats are a power of the republicans are the conservative party. When republicans are in power, there is no conservative party. Because often times the things that we cant see, become inconvenient when people are trying to govern prayed and think that frankly is because of the influence of special interest have read theres not a strong special interest present to reduce spending. All can agree on the increases in it because the pie is bigger. And i would say it is not really a big special interest effort against whatever boris. Because these forever worse crag plus Fund Opportunities for spending very little accountability. Theres not a special interest push to limit illegal immigration because democrats benefit in terms of political power for them and a lot of big businesses to support republicans, use illegal immigration to keep the wages down for americans. So on the number of these issues, it is not republicans against democrats. It is the any party, the establishment those republicans and the democrats are willing to adhere to so that the worst elements of washington, the elements that would impoverish with the bad trade deals that would not have a clear understanding of what victory was light in it and trent that would fundamentally change with america they would have unchecked legal immigration. Thats a lot as part of the populace right in washington. Host you just mentioned the endless war. I have to say congressman, of all of the chapters in the book, man, that one pulled in my heartstrings. That to me, there is nothing really therefore, like matt gates rules on when you should go to work. Versus when you should not. Matt i think that we have been trading the same villages back and forth in afghanistan for 19 years. At great cost to our country into our people. And again like i was saying, there absolutely are times when we have to go fight. When is just a necessary part of reasons i am so grateful the president reagan is trying republican ideology of having a big strong capable military. I worry about sort of the Permanent Police statement things become far too acceptable to the establishment of washington bargaining President Trump in a sudden deal with a bully. Punch him in the nose and give him a real question before they would mess with you again enhanced and that in syria by taking out so money and outbound deity and taking out the leader. What you dont do with the bully start to move in to their home for 20 years with the hopes of realigning their world. I think that is what the obama, the bush failed doctrines did. Host we have a few more minutes freedom want to turn to the elections, there on everybodys mind. In years no doubt. In some respects co