After turning Kevin McCarthy’s Speaker of the House election into a mad house, Matt Gaetz is, alas, newly emboldened. Not only does his party have a wafer thin majority in the chamber, he may even have negotiated his way into some new powers. Whatever the case, one half of the GOP’s Beavis and Butt-Head been speaking up more. But that may not be so good for him, much less the rest of America.
As per HuffPost, a Congressional hearing with the House Armed Services Committee was held on Tuesday, during which Gaetz tried to be his usual combative self. Instead, he only wound up being calmly humiliated by a witness he was trying to grill. In an exchange with Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, Gaetz tried to slam U.S. involvement in Ukraine, inquiring whether the Pentagon has officials in the invaded nation. Kahl said they don’t.
Gaetz then tried to bust out a gotcha moment. He cited a report from Global Times about Pentagon allegedly training Ukrainians to fight. What is Global Times? Well, it’s an English-language daily tabloid run that’s a subsidiary of the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper The People’s Daily. In other words, it’s not exactly something a competent lawmaker cites in a hearing. And Kahl called him out on it.
"As a general matter I don't take Beijing's propaganda at face value" — Absolutely amazing: Matt Gaetz tried to use literal Chinese propaganda during a congressional hearing, and got called on it by a witness pic.twitter.com/2OS9Q9z9Ad
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2023
“I’m sorry, is this the Global Times from China?” Kahl asked Gaetz.
Gaetz fumbled, first claiming it wasn’t then, after looking at the publication more closely, sheepishly saying, “Yeah, it might be. Yeah.”
Kahl calmly responded, “As a general matter, I don’t take Beijing’s propaganda at face value.”
Gaetz then asked if the allegation happened to be true anyway. “I don’t have any evidence one way or the other,” Kahl replied, then repeated, “As a general matter, I don’t take Beijing’s propaganda at face value.”
“Fair, fair enough,” an embarrassed Gaetz replied. “I would agree with that assessment.”
Gaetz oozes unearned bravado, so please enjoy him being cornered by someone who actually knows what he’s talking about.
(Via HuffPost)