415: THROWBACK: Thomas Massie Says "The Deep State is Real!" (November, 2019)

Brian Nichols  
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Victor Antonio  
selling is all about really it's we're not selling a product you're not selling a service you're not selling. You're not selling whatever you think you're selling a solution you're selling change

Brian Nichols  
Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show your source for common sense politics on the we are libertarians network as a sales and marketing executive in the greater telecommunications cybersecurity industry. Brian works with C level executives to help them future proof their company's infrastructure for an uncertain future. And in each episode, Brian takes that experience and applies it's the liberty movement. And this is why we talk about being the trusted advisor you should be able to help us that expert guidance and all the opinions that I'm sure that you have and help lead them towards not just a decision but the right decision. Instead of focusing on simply winning arguments or being right. We're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and their application in the world of politics, showing you how to ask better questions, tell better stories and ultimately change people's minds. And now, your host, Brian Nichols. Congressman Thomas Massie here on The Brian Nichols Show. Hey, thanks for having me on, Brian. Absolutely. Congressman, you've been very busy today. Because today over in, in DC, which is otherwise known as a swamp up here in the northeast, you guys ended up voting on the continuing resolution, which we'll dig into a little bit more because it was absolutely insane. But thankfully, we got somebody like you, they're fighting the good fight. So for anybody who is living under a rock, could you maybe do a little quick introduction, Congressman, really, who are you? And what was your liberty story to get you to where you are today?

Thomas Massie  
Oh, okay. I'll try and give you a quick version. I grew up in Kentucky. I was an inventor. As a kid, I built robot arms for science fairs. I was kind of geeky. And I wanted to go to MIT. So I ended up going to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I got a degree in electrical engineering degree in mechanical engineering started a company while I was there, raised venture capital did that for 10 years, sold my ownership and the company moved back to Kentucky, and really hadn't been paying much attention to politics. But I started reading the local paper. And I noticed that the local politicians were trying to raise our taxes zone, our property force people who didn't need a sewer system because they had septic tanks that worked fine forced them to sign up for something they didn't need using eminent domain. Like lots of sort of ugly things to libertarians. Love freedom. Yeah, so I started writing letters to the editor. Okay. Oh, by the way, I was building a house off the grid at the time. This was like 2003 to 2010. And I wrote some letters to the editor in 2007. I think this was before there was something called the Tea Party and What surprised me is my neighbors cared about the same things that I cared about. And so I rallied folks to go to like the local town hall meetings and stare down the politicians. And we stopped some some taxes from passing, we stopped the planning board from becoming a zoning board, they were going to zone everybody's property and tell you what you could and couldn't do with it. Really, it was it was tough, a tough slog at the local level. But in any case, I realized that the person who appointed all these people to the boards that we were fighting against and trying to keep them from raising our taxes, was the county executive. And people encouraged me to run for that position. I did I got in there. I went after waste, fraud and abuse, I found mostly a lot of waste. And this was in county government, and eliminated that eliminated enough to pay my salary three times over in county government. And then, you know, there's 3000 Let's see, is that right? Yeah, 3000 counties in the United States. So I just had a small sliver of government there. But I thought, gee, if there's this much waste, fraud abuse in one of 3000 counties, there's got to be so much more at the federal level. And Congressman decided he wasn't going to run again, I entered a seven way primary. It was a knock down, drag out. Primary, but I got the endorsement of Ron Paul Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Justin Amash, and fought my way through that with a lot of help and support from people that love Liberty, ended up here in Congress in 2012. And ever since then, I've been popping the fuses here and blowing the circuit breakers. I say I say it that way. Because, unfortunately, a lot of times the established way of things prevails. But you got to make it hard for them to do what they're trying to do. Otherwise, they'll do more of it,

Brian Nichols  
for sure. And so I actually had your your, your colleague, Congressman Amash, on my show back this past, past summer, and actually is right before he decided to quote unquote, declare his independence. So being a Liberty Republican in an era of Trump is is obviously very difficult. That's part of the reason that Congressman Amash has decided to disassociate with the GOP, what's life like for you, as you know, one of those few left Liberty Republicans in Congress?

Thomas Massie  
Actually, I think it's easier to be a Liberty Republican under Trump than it was under Obama. In many ways, some days you measure progress in Washington, DC by the depth of the crater that you can create. And by that measure, Trump's been wildly successful at, you know, it taking on the deep state. A lot of these people that, you know, government officials that people thought walked on water, we've we found out that they're self interested, folks who have their own agendas, and really don't like the notion of elected government. I'm talking about folks like James Comey, and there's a whole list. And those folks are out of government. Now. They were they weren't noble people, Peter strock, not a noble person. So, you know, in some measure, we've we've made a lot of progress. In the executive branch now, it's really not my job to support or oppose a president. Okay, people, pro Trump folks and anti Trump folks are always telling me support the president oppose the president resist comply. You know, I'm like, I'm a legislator. My job is to look at policy, not who's in the White House, right. And if it's good policy, I support it. If it's bad policy, I don't. Now, that's become tougher, because the Democrats have started an impeachment process here. So as so whereas it was never my job to support or oppose a president. Now, Democrats are now the Democrats are forcing people to do that. Right. So that's, that's one of the tough things. I think it's a great distraction. Just as an example, Brian, today there, in fact, right now, there's an impeachment interview going on in the Intel Committee, yet. They just extended the Patriot Act inside of the continuing resolution today here in Congress while while everybody was paying attention to the impeachment. So this is a frustrating thing for me. There were issues Like the Patriot Act like this, you know 702 FISA court, and warrants that were going on that we were making progress on that there really aren't because everybody's distracted. Now, the positive thing, the positive thing to all these weapons of mass distraction is what I call the impeachment or the Mueller report weapons of mass distraction is that I haven't heard a single Democrat in the House of Representatives talk about a Red Flag Law in the last four to six weeks. Like they've totally lost their minds. And they can't focus on all the anti Liberty stuff they were going to do. And we've, we've got a little reprieve here, from those things.

Brian Nichols  
So my show obviously, is reaching a lot more I'd say, you know, the small l or even in many cases, Big L libertarians. Right. And I think there's been a pretty big split in the the larger libertarian circles, because a lot of libertarian folks look at Trump as you know, kind of this guy with a hammer, just going through the china shop and just smashing everything in his way. Whereas others are looking him as you know, truly a threat to our liberty. And I think it's been a really hard, I mean, to say it's hard to get libertarians to agree on anything is is, you know, an understatement here. But to really look and say, you know, as somebody who's in the fray of things, being yourself, Congressman, what would you say to libertarians to, you know, kind of give them a little bit more insight that you're experiencing behind the scenes in terms of Trump's you know, either his his good feelings or his bad feelings towards the concept of liberty?

Thomas Massie  
Again, I don't I don't want to support or oppose the person in the White House. But if we're going to try to produce a scorecard, let's let's put in one of the columns, number of wars started. Okay. And this is the first president in a long time who hasn't started a war in since he's been in office. And I think those are his instincts. I mean, sometimes it is hard to divine, because a lot of times he's messing with the liberals. Sometimes it is hard to divine what he means in his tweets, but at the end of the day, we aren't in another war. And, you know, I oppose the president both of the times that we attack Syria, okay. But if you go back and look at what was the result of those attacks, fortunately, you know, in one case, they they bombed a warehouse and empty warehouse and another case, they bombed an airfield, but called ahead and said, Hey, we're going to bomb the airfield. It's and then another time, another really defining moment was when the Iranians took down a drone, a US drone that was supposedly not in their airspace, which I have no reason to doubt that, that, that our story wasn't correct. But the President didn't reciprocate. He could have retaliated, and he chose not to. And the reason he gave is that they they estimated there would be like two or 300 casualties, and he said, it's not worth a drone to kill two or 300 people at that's the first time I've ever really heard a president say that. I'm talking, you know, I'm not I don't think that Obama or Bush would have had the restraint in the face of all of the advisors who are there.

Brian Nichols  
So let's take a little bit of a 180. And we obviously touched on it briefly discussing the impeachment, right. So that's kind of what everybody's talking about. Now. It's actually interesting, because I'm from upstate New York, and at least the phonic was my home Congresswoman. So to see my home district kind of thrust into the new cycle all sudden with her opponent, Tedra Cobb, you know, raising almost a million dollars after the initial beginning of the impeachment inquiries. It was like, huh, this is kind of interesting. This is all taking place up in New York. 21. So I guess, you know, obviously, Congressman, you if it does go to the house for a vote, you're going to have to, you know, cast your vote one way or another. And your colleague Congressman Amash seems like he's on the opposite side of the aisle in terms of supporting impeachment, maybe kind of give some insight what what are some of us layman's missing, that you've kind of been able to witness in terms of how you're approaching this impeachment proceeding?

Thomas Massie  
Well, first of all, the deep state is real. And if you if the people listening to this podcast, I have a problem with me saying that, I apologize, you're probably not going to get what I'm about to say next, which is there's a permanent government that inside the skiff by the way, I'm on the Oversight Committee. So I was down there for the witness tryouts we call them where Adam Schiff brought in people he thought would support his case. And the ones who are the ones that did well, he's pulling them out in the public and ones who did and he's kind of put him over on the sidelines. But as I sat there in the skiff, listening to people who were less on their guard than they are now out in the public, I realized that these folks who are in the government who aren't elected, they got appointed somewhere way back or just moved their way up through the bureaucracy. They consider themselves to be very patriotic. They're very. They're dedicated to the mission. But they are also bounded and determined not to elect not to let elected officials knock them off their mission, like they believe they set foreign policy. And the currency with which they control other countries, is foreign aid, is foreign military assistance. And then more than anything, those people are upset that President Trump dared to slow down or interrupt what they were doing, and the money that they were distributing. And, you know, I believe that countries are sovereign, we shouldn't be over there trying to influence their elections, obviously, that's what we're doing. And we're trying to influence all of their policies and trying to get their governments to do things and the currency that the State Department and the other actors use is your tax dollars. Right. So I don't know. That's a that's one of the things that I've seen from sitting through these depositions, and being just a few feet away from the people who are testifying.

Brian Nichols  
Now you mentioned in an important part, that they use your tax dollars, right. And obviously, I'm speaking to you today and the 19th, where they just literally passed the continuing resolution that actually snuck in a continuation of the Patriot Act. So let's, you know, a lot of people I think, are ignorant of just the political process. So could you kind of just outline how did this happen? How do we get to a point where we're passing continued resolution after continuing resolution, and yet, we're still able to have these establishment politicians sneak in, you know, things like the Patriot Act and renewal process completely, you know, through the dark of night, and yet, it's going to impact millions and millions of Americans. And it's all done behind the scenes. How's that all happen?

Thomas Massie  
Well, I've been here almost seven years now. And I've seen this play call about four of the seven years that I've been here what they're doing right now, they're not very original, they just do the same thing over and over. And my colleagues act like they get fooled all the time over and over or something but what, here's the play call, they're running this year, they they are kicking the can down the road just a few weeks at a time until they get the can just a few days before Christmas. And I have been in closed meetings with the GOP conference when john bainer walks in, is the it's the day before we go on Christmas vacation. He the car has been punted several times. And he walks in he says we got an omnibus, and we're going to vote on it here in about an hour. And if this thing passes, if you vote for it, you can go home for Christmas and be with your family. But if it doesn't pass, you're going to be here with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid can't remember who it was at the time. What a Christmas present to you guys. Yeah, and that's who you're going to spend your Christmas with. And the room erupts into chant, where people start saying vote, vote, vote, vote, vote. And they literally it's like a locker room as they leave the conference room chanting vote, and go up there and vote for whatever's in front of them. Because they want to go home and be with their families. That's the play call. They're running this year, the car that they just pass the day goes into until December 20. Okay, now, we're supposed to go on on holiday break like a week before that. You're gonna have some real leverage if we get to December 20. And people are missing their family Christmas parties and stuff. So that's one thing they're doing this messed up and I don't care whether you're Republican, Democrat, Independent or libertarian, you should know that that's messed up. Here's the other thing that they did today. of funding bill, they put them all together, there should be 12 separate appropriations bills, but they've they've come to favor this strategy where they put it all together. So if it doesn't pass, you can't it's just it would be unforgiveable for you not to vote to fund the whole government. Right. So there's right there's tremendous pressure, because you're not incrementally voting for this or that you're you're voting for all of government in one vote. They realize they can attach some nasty stuff to that. A year. or two ago, what they attached was called fixed NICs, it was an expansion of the broken background check system without fixing the, you know, you know, for gun purchases federal background check system, they they threw that into an omnibus or CR Well, this today, they threw in a, a, an extension of the Patriot Act into the omnibus. So, again, whether you're Republican, Democrat, Big L, Libertarian, small l, Libertarian, you should understand this is a horrible way to do legislation, but they're using what they're doing is they're giving all the Democrats who, when Republicans who were in the majority, the Democrats opposed for the most of them oppose the Patriot Act. But now today, they gave them all cover, they attack, they stuck the Patriot Act in the continuing resolution. So the Democrats, we could go home and say, Well had to vote for it. Now, here's another thing they do, Brian, another messed up process. And I know we're not talking about ideology here, which may upset some libertarians that listen to his show. But if they've got blood coursing through their veins, if they can fog a mirror, this should upset them, regardless of what their ideology is. When when Pelosi was speaker before I got here, she famously said you got to vote for this Obamacare to see what's in it. Okay, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but not as badly as Adam Schiff, reading the transcript of the president. She said, you know, vote for it to see what's in it. Well, when Republicans took over, thanks to the tea party in 2010. They they demanded, we don't ever want to be in that position, again, give us three days to read a bill. So the Republicans adopted a house rule that says everybody will have three days to read the bill. Well, nobody defined what a day is. Now you and I think a day has 24 hours. But what they decided was that if you introduced the bill at 11:50pm, on a Tuesday, then Tuesday counts as one day, because the bill touched it by 10 minutes. And then you would have Wednesday to look at the bill. But guess what, the reporters can't get that printed in your hometown newspaper before Thursday morning, which is when you're going to vote on it, right? And of course, Thursday morning counts as a whole 24 hour day. So they totally bastardize this three day rule. It became like a 30 hour rule. And that was frustrating to us and to some Democrats. So Nancy Pelosi takes the gavel again, they get the majority back some of the more prominent reformers and who newcomers to the party, the Democratic Party, said, You know what, we're better than Republicans. Let's make it a 72 hour rule. So now we have an honest to goodness, 72 Hour Rule. You're you you, the speaker has to give you 72 hours to read a bill and your constituents to consider the bill before you vote on it. Well, guess what? This bill came out less than 24 hours before we had to vote on it today. How did they get away with that? Because the speaker comes to the floor. The Rules Committee writes an amendment to the rule just for one bill, and says we're going to suspend all points of order. Now one of those points of order would be Hey, I object you didn't give us 72 hours to read this bill. You can't even make that objection. Because there's a they amended the rules today. Now, how do they amend the rules without a majority voting for it? Well, a majority did vote for it. It turns out that even though you got all these great rules to protect the rank and file members, when the speaker tells rank and file members of his or her own party, vote to suspend this rule that protects yourself. They dutifully do it. Every single Democrat 230 voted, voted to suspend the 72 hour rule today, so that Pelosi could shove this down of the American public throats. And that's what happened.

Brian Nichols  
Just like he's just just like, yeah, the founders wanted, right.

Thomas Massie  
Yeah, I'm sure this is what the founders imagined not.

Brian Nichols  
Well, how about this because I know we're getting close to wrapping up here with your time schedule. So I think it sounds like a lot of these, you know, these more establishment folks, they've gotten corrupted by the precious and I think it's a good way to end the show is Congressman Massey give us the story. What is the precious that you've you've spoken about? Many a time, so I noticed there's

Thomas Massie  
this thing. So the analogy here is the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit you know, for those who don't know about the the series of books and movies are living in a cave with Gollum, I guess. The ring is something that if a man put it on it would corrupt him almost instantly, and if a hobbit put it on, it took a while to corrupt him, but eventually everybody fell power to this ring, or fell fell prey to this ring because of the power it gave them. I noticed that this connection National pin that every congressman wears up here is they feel intoxicated by the power it conveys on them when they wear the pin. When you're walking down the hallway, people won't make eye contact with you because they know you're a congressman, even if they don't recognize you, when you get in an elevator, nobody speaks. When you when you're approaching a police officer in the Capitol Hill police officer moves aside and let you through, you walk around the metal detector, you don't walk through the metal detector. Oh, unless you're not wearing precious and the cop doesn't recognize you then you better have precious in your pocket, pull freshers out, which is the repent, not the rent, not a ring and show it to them. And then all is good. And so what I've noticed is when I wear the pin, it starts to get to you. You notice it. And so I try not to wear it more than a half to every time I come to Mordor though I have to put the pressures on, you know, to get through security. And there are even times like, when I wake up on Monday morning to come to DC and a half to get in the car and go to the airport, I try not to turn the lights on in the bedroom to to wake you know, I don't want to wake up my wife if I don't have to if she doesn't have to get up. And so I find myself fumbling around looking for precious in the dark, like Gollum and I asked my wife if you see precious. And she's like, I think it's on the nightstand over there. Anyways, that's the that's the whole precious thing. And if somebody hasn't seen Lord of the Rings or read The Hobbit boy, they're gonna think I'm just absolutely crazy when I talked about that, but

Brian Nichols  
Well, no, not at all, Congressman. I mean, honestly, that's a great analogy, because it speaks to, honestly what the power does to people, when they get to Washington, they can come in with the best of intentions. And then, you know, just a few short months later, they seem like completely different people. And thankfully, we got folks like you and office who you've kept the precious often. And you've been able to still maintain to beat yourself to be one of the most principled good guys out there. So we need more, more folks like you. And you know, folks like Congressman Amash, and Mike Lee and Rand Paul in office. And again, thank you so much for all you're doing. And obviously, you know, we're we're behind you guys 100% of the way for all that you've been doing behind the scenes to help promote the message of liberty. So thank you so much for that.

Thomas Massie  
Hey, thank you, Brian. Thanks for having me on your podcast. I look forward to coming back on sometime. Thanks for getting the message out there and using this format. Really appreciate it. And please stop by and see me in DC sometime.

Brian Nichols  
Absolutely, sir. Listen, I appreciate the time and we'll definitely have you on again in the near future. Alrighty. Thanks for listening to The Brian Nichols Show. Find more episodes at the Brian Nichols show.com If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe. Want to help us reach more people? Give the show a five star review and tell your friends to subscribe to find us at Brian Nichols show.com and download the show on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me on social media at V. Nichols liberty and consider donating to the show at the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash support. The Brian Nichols Show is supported by viewers like you. Thank you to our patrons Daryl Schmitz, Morris Stanley, Michael Lima, Mitchell, megabits, Cody, John's, Fred de caster, and the we're libertarians network. trust the experts, we're all in this together. It saves one life raise your hand if you heard any of those tiresome phrases over the past year and a half. I know my hand is currently raised millions of people across dozens of industries are labeled on essential and forced the lockdown but livelihoods in futures are crushed in an instant and as government has continued to expand its power and leverage fear to turn neighbor against neighbor a group of filmmakers have taken a stand and are determined to help set the record straight on the importance of following the actual science of the pandemic follow the science on lockdowns and liberty from the sound mind Creative Group is a brand new Docu series highlighting the stories of those negatively impacted over the past year and a half by ineffective government policies enacted in the name of following the science with noted experts like Nick Hudson from Panda the pandemic data analytics organization healthcare policy advisors like Scott Atlas and telling stories of business owners families and just your average everyday person harmed by these government mandates all the science on lockdowns and liberty is giving us a chance to make sure the true stories of the pandemic are told so please help us at The Brian Nichols Show in supporting the sound mind creative group with noted figures in the liberty movement like Dr. Tom Woods donating 1000s of their own dollars to this project. You know just how important this project is. So head the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash follow the science to donate and catch their brand new trailer to the Docu series one more time. That's Brian Nichols show.com forward slash follow the science

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