Speaker 1: Very often when on this program we look at clips from congressional hearings, particularly
clips of Republican members of Congress who have an inflated sense of self-importance
and ego trying to make themselves look like they are smart and well prepared. It's merely
disaster porn. And what I mean by that is it's not particularly instructive. It's sort of like,
wow, they looked really dumb, but there's not that much to learn from it. Today, I have a very
different example for you that is extraordinarily instructive, and we're going to link it actually
to this recent report on the origins or Orange is of COVID from the Department of Energy. But
before I even do that, let's talk about what we're talking about. Radical and repugnant. Republican
Congressman Matt Gaetz was called out yesterday in real time for citing Chinese propaganda. Now,
what happens here is extraordinarily instructive with regard to confirmation bias and not only the
willingness, but the eagerness of these right wingers to accept any source uncritically if it
confirms what they already believe. So let's take a look at this clip. This was a moment
during the House Armed Services Committee where Matt Gaetz tried to sort of gotcha. Colin Kahl,
who's the U.S. defense undersecretary for policy and talk about the Azov battalion getting access
to American weapons. Calling, Carl says, I don't have any evidence of that. And Matt Gaetz says,
well, what about this? And it turns out that it is overt Chinese propaganda. You will also notice,
if you're watching this clip, that some of the folks sitting in the audience really
seem to be enjoying this. Okay. So let's take a look and then we'll talk about it.
Speaker 2: It's the Azoff Battalion getting access to U.S. weapons.
Speaker 3: Not that I'm aware of. Speaker 2: But. If you have information, I intend
to enter into the record The Global Times investigative report that talks about training.
It's from the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab. Citing the age, our battalion was
even getting stuff as far back as 2018. Without objection, so ordered. Any reason to disagree
with that assessment? Is this the I'm sorry? Is this the Global Times from China? No, this is.
Well, that's what you read. Yeah, it might be, yeah. Would that be a reason? I as a general
matter, I don't take Beijing's probably. No, no, you just tell me if the allegation is true
or false. I mean, I don't have any evidence one way or the other. As a general matter, I don't
take Beijing's propaganda at face value. Oh, God, I would agree with that assessment. April.
Speaker 1: The Global Times is a daily tabloid newspaper published under the auspices of the
Chinese Communist Party's flagship paper, The People's Daily. It is overtly Chinese propaganda.
Now. In a tabloid Chinese propaganda newspaper might occasionally publish things that are true.
But understand that Matt Gaetz doesn't actually care about that. Matt Gaetz didn't have any idea
that he was repeating overt Chinese propaganda there. And the the sort of story of the day here
is confirmation bias. Now, okay, Matt Gaetz probably later went and yelled at whatever
staffer put that in his package of stuff for the day and said, I'm being ridiculed the country
over for what I just did, and somebody is going to somebody is going to be fired or going to be
admonished for it. But if you look at the clip, you can tell not only does Matt Gaetz not know
anything about the source, he doesn't care about the source. And this is a perfect example of how
the modern Republican Party, the MAGA people, et cetera. They embrace any source that tells
them what they want to hear or what they already believe, and they don't care about the validity
of the source. The analogy here is the Department of Energy report on COVID origins. We talked about
this extensively yesterday on the bonus show. Speaker 4: The bonus show where you want to
make money. Yeah, everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad.
Speaker 1: And we made an incredible amount of money on yesterday's bonus show talking about
this. The Department of Energy put out a report about the origins of COVID and says our assessment
is it was an accidental leak from a lab in China. And in the report, the Department of Energy says
this is a low confidence assessment and it's based on not super reliable and very limited evidence.
And all of a sudden, the same right wingers who for three years have been saying, I don't trust
anything the government tells us about the origins of COVID. Now they trust a Department of Energy
assessment about the origins of COVID. Why is the Department of Energy even assessing this? Well,
that's that's a fair question. But the real point is they are now uncritically accepting
a government report about the origins of COVID. After saying for years you couldn't
trust government reports about the origins of COVID. Why? Because it happens to be a report,
admittedly low confidence, admittedly with sketchy and limited data that confirms what they already
believe. And that's what this is fundamentally all about. One other this is like a bonus clip
from yesterday's hearing. Here is friend of the show, Eric Swalwell slamming Matt Gaetz
for bringing to the hearing someone he met at a gun club who had been charged with killing a
family member in April of 2019. This isn't a joke, okay? This is this is where we are today. Take a.
Speaker 4: Look. One of the very first committees, the very first committee hearing of this Congress.
Mr. Gates, after we all agreed on what the committee's plan was going to be,
it was going to be voice vote. And everyone agreed. Mr. Gates wanted to offer an amendment
to say the Pledge of Allegiance. That's great. Every single person on our side supported that.
Now. I don't think he really genuinely cares about saying the Pledge of Allegiance. No, but he wanted
to do it again to own the Libs and to see if we would vote against it. We didn't. But who did he
bring in here to say? The Pledge of Allegiance. Right. Who did he parade him here in a uniform.
Somebody that he met at a gun club, he said locally. Okay. Mr. Cicilline, you had the
crazy idea that maybe we should vet the people who come in here,
make sure they're not insurrectionists. Mr. McClintock I am not kidding you,
Mr. McClintock said. Well, it's not like we're going to invite somebody who committed murder.
No, he literally said that. It's not like we're going to invite somebody who committed murder.
Okay. Well, who did Mr. Gates bring? He brought. Corey Beekman. Corey Beekman in 2019
was in a standoff with the Michigan police after he was arrested and charged with murder,
assault with intent to commit murder and two counts of felony firearm possession.
The family of the victims said Mr. Gates. Doing that, it was like getting a dagger stuck in our
heart again. We were infuriated when we first saw it. I was disgusted with the whole thing.
That's why there's a trust deficit here. You pull off a public stunt to try and
own the libs. And what you did was you brought in the guy who allegedly shot.
Two people killed. One of them? Speaker 1: Yeah. So a very,
very bad day yesterday for Matt Gaetz. And this is exactly what we expected.
With Republicans controlling the House of Representatives. Humiliation after embarrassment,
after humiliation after embarrassment. And they are certainly not disappointing.