Fox News "The Ingraham Angle" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Lee Zeldin and Rep. Matt Gaetz

Interview

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Laura Ingraham: Joining me now is Lee Zeldin, House Foreign Affairs Committee member, and Matt Gaetz, who's on the House Judiciary Committee. He had to endure this marathon the last few days. Congressman Zeldin, let's start with you, though, isn't it, as impeachment clearly heads for a final vote? Do you get any sense at all from your Democratic colleagues that they do realize how damaging this process has been to our political system?

Rep. Lee Zeldin: Well, I'm sure that there are many of them, some are going to be voting no. There will be a bipartisan vote on impeachment, there will be others who will be come aware of it in November of 2020 if they don't get the point now, because you have 31 House Democrats in districts that Donald Trump won. When those Trump voters sent those Democrats to Washington, they were being sent to work with the president in order to get really important substantive priorities across the finish line, not to actually impeach that president that they voted for. Also, some realize it now and others are going to be realizing it next November. And for people who have gavels in their hands, even if they're on the far left of their party, when they're no longer in the majority after next November's election, then their entire conference, we'll see it the hard way, kicking me back in the minority.

Laura Ingraham: Yeah what we heard last night from Congressman Buck is that maybe he said two double digit defections. But Scalise says, I think about three, maybe you'll get three votes against impeachment next week. But this is what Congressman Gaetz I know you were there so you witnessed this but a lot of our viewers missed it when Nadler last night recesses, because I guess just not enough people were watching. Watch.

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Jerry Nadler: The committee is in recess.

Male Speaker: Chairman Mr. Chairman, there was no consulting for the minority ranking member on your schedule for tomorrow. This is the kangaroo court that we're talking about. We're all in this. Not even a soul.

Male Speaker: Stalinesque let's have a dictator is good to hear about that.

Male Speaker: 2 a.m. unbelievable.

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Laura Ingraham: Tell us about that moment, Congressman Gaetz, and that's the grounds for recessing because they wanted more people watching.

Rep. Matt Gaetz: Laura, Democrats would have you believe this impeachment springs from the organic output of some bad presidential conduct. But what you just showed proves that this is really all a substitution for the lack of an agenda. For Democrats, this is an impeachment with no crime. It's an impeachment without any direct evidence. And it's an impeachment largely motivated by the Democrats view of their presidential field. Because even as Michael Bloomberg said Donald Trump would eat alive any of the current Democrats running and that he's getting stronger by the day so now as we move to the floor of the House, the question is which direction is the momentum really going? Will the Democrats lose momentum? We certainly don't think they'll gain it because every Republican is going to vote against this impeachment and there will be Democrats voting with the Republicans. So they failed to meet their own standard. And you know what, Laura? The media needs to push back hard on this. Why are Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler getting off the hook when they said this had to be bipartisan? There had to be compelling evidence that way. And now it's none of those things.

Laura Ingraham: Well, they're blaming the Republicans for that. You should make it bipartisan, Matt Gaetz, by voting for it that's their big argument. Now, Congressman, the White House and Senate Republicans are still trying to get on the same page about a defense strategy when this moves to the Senate. Here's how the president reacted today.

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President Donald Trump: I could do I'll do whatever I want. Look, there is we did nothing wrong. So I'll do long or short. I've heard Mitch. I've heard Lindsey. I think they are very much from agreement on some concept. I'll do whatever they want to do. It doesn't matter. I wouldn't mind a long process because I'd like to see the whistleblower who is a fraud.

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Laura Ingraham: Well, Congressman Zeldin, the White House is obviously still trying to figure out a game plan here. But given how thin the evidence was and how pathetic the Democrats were here. Isn't it better to actually, you know, really seal the deal here in a Senate trial and get a full acquittal instead of just moving for a motion to dismiss?

Lee Zeldin: Well, I agree with that. And now we've heard from certain witnesses so far. Fact based witnesses like Kurt Volker and Tim Morris, and I would want to hear them testify but beyond that, I'd like to hear from the whistleblower. I believe Adam Schiff is a fact witness. I believe that Hunter Biden is a fact witness. The investigations that President Trump was concerned about they were these were legitimate investigations that were Ukrainians interfering in the 2016 election. Whether it's, you know, Charlie's op ed or it's a Volkov statements or it's Chalupa working with the Ukrainian embassy to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign or the black ledger to help take down a Trump campaign official or the other investigation with regards to Burisma Chayefsky and Hunter Biden. These are legitimate investigations. I want the other 97 percent of this story to get out. And I believe that when you get the rest of the story out, the president is going to not just to be found not guilty, but actually acquitted and that's going to be the stories to be written for decades and generations, not having their side in this story, the entire story.

Laura Ingraham: OK. Congressman Gaetz, we're almost out of time, but you're at the White House tonight. What are you recommending they do?

Matt Gaetz: I have a different view than Congressman Zeldin. I think that even if you took every single fact that the Democrats alleged is true, this does not rise to an impeachable offense. So I'd have a two step process, one, acquit the president. Step two, engage in real oversight with Senator Graham or with the Foreign Affairs Committee let's call forward those very witnesses that Lee Zeldin just mentioned but we should not be doing it in the context of impeachment, because even the notion of impeachment right now is a total joke and we proved that in the House Judiciary Committee.

Laura Ingraham: Well, we can't wait to see how it all unfolds. You've both been really instrumental in making this a lot clearer to the American public. Thank you very much for joining us this Friday night. Congressmen, thanks so much. It's easy to become numb to the media bias these days, so the Ingraham angle is keeping track of the worst offenders of the week. Joining me now, Jeffrey Lord, former CNN contributor, author of Swamp Wars, and Tammy Bruce, author of President of the Independent Women's Voice and a Fox News contributor. All right. Let's start with you, Jeffrey let's begin with how CNN was gaslighting viewers this week on the whole DOJ inspector general report. Now, they knew just how damaging this report is to the narrative that they peddled for more than two years.

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