Birch'N the USA: Hegseth Impeachment, Flock Cameras, Epstein Files Act II

Sep 15, 2026 · 30:02 hegseth impeachment flock epstein surveillance

Straight from the floor: Massie walks through the eight Hegseth articles, the Flock-Off Act, data-center siting, and the last Republican signature he needs on the Epstein Files II discharge petition.

Original by The John Birch Society on YouTube ↗ · Is this yours? Claim credit →

Chapters

Transcript

Download captions

Click any timestamp to jump to that moment.

Welcome to Virgin the USA and welcome to our special guest, Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Uh let's get right into it. Welcome, by the way.
>> Thanks, Christian. Great to be on your show again. >> Uh so your office published a press release announcing that you are introducing articles of impeachment
against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsf and forcing a vote in the House of Representatives. Could you give us a rundown why you believe the Secretary of
Defense should be impeached? >> Well, we've exhausted all other avenues that we have legislative to uh stop this
guy from waging war and doing other things that are unconstitutional and illegal and unwise. So, we have I just
read them. I just came from the floor. I introduced eight articles of impeachment. Um I'll go through some of them. The first three are violations of
the 1973 War Powers Resolution. And I know probably some of your listeners have some, you know, probably debate about
the 1973 War Powers Resolution. A lot of presidents have used it and administrations to try to say that it
gives them more power. But the reality was it was passed over the objections um of Richard Nixon. In fact, they had to override his veto to pass the 1973
war powers resolution. And so there are three ways in which Peter Hegsth is waging war um illegally because even
though Donald Trump gave him orders to do that, those were illegal orders. And so he was under no obligation to do that. In fact, he's under an obligation
not to follow illegal orders. The first thing they did is they didn't meet the requirements that were delineated in the 1973 war powers resolution.
Basically, you the president can only take action according to that law if there is a a strike on an American soil
or a base or soldiers or US assets. Like there has to be an attack or an AUMF or a declaration of war. they met none of
those three conditions when they started the Iran war. So, he's in violation of that. That's section 2C. Section 5B
is um is the one that says that if you go past 60 days that you then you have
to stop if you don't have an authorization, use of military force or a declaration of war. Well, they don't have that and they've gone way past 60
days. They've contrived this crazy legal argument that they stopped the war on day 59 and then restarted it on day 61.
And now they claim they're just restarting the war every time they make an attack, which is ludicrous. The third article of impeachment that's related to
the 1973 war powers resolution is um section 5C which says that if Congress
passes a concurrent resolution, in other words, if the House and the Senate both pass the same resolution and send it to the president that they have to stop the
war or whatever military conflict they're in. Well, for the first time in the history of this country, Congress did just that. And the DoD is ignoring
our concurrent resolution. [clears throat] So, those are three things. The fourth one that I want to talk about that's related to the Iron Iran war, you may remember that they
struck a school and killed a bunch of school kids and teachers and even first responders because they did a a double
trap, a double tap. Even they waited for people to respond and then they go back and hit it again with tomahawk missiles. Well, that was mistake a m case of
mistaken uh targeting of civilian infrastructure. Pete Hegsathth before the Iran war.
Sorry, I'm clearing my throat because I read that resolution for an hour and 20 minutes on the floor of the house. Pete Pete Hegsth [clears throat]
um he dismantled the department and the personnel and the tools inside of the Department of
Defense that were congressionally mandated by law to minimize civilian casualties to to doublech checkck the targets and to minimize civilian
casualties. Pete Hex, he first asked Congress to repeal it and we didn't repeal it, the requirement to minimize civilian casualties. In fact, we funded
it in fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2026 and he just hasn't been carrying it out. So, that's what led to the death of all
those civilians in that school. So, those are four of the articles of impeachment um dealing with that war. There's the
one dealing with the kidnapping of a foreign head of state. They misused our military basically to grab the oil assets of another country and to engage
in regime change all under the guise that they were operating as law enforcement
which is they're not allowed to do but and but they tried to say legally [clears throat] we're doing counter nar
counter narcotics um interdiction here and we're and whatever and we're taking out Maduro for
violating laws, US laws, which frankly actually didn't even apply to him and that was illegal and again not
authorized by Congress. Then in Yemen, if you remember, there was a signal chat that was leaked several uh it was about
a year ago, I suppose, where before they attacked Yemen, you have the director of the CN There was a reporter in that uh in that chat, right?
>> Yeah. They This is where in their incompetence led to transparency for once. Um instead of like losing files or
losing documents, they accidentally release stuff. Yeah. So, a reporter was on the signal chat had been erroneously added. And so, you had the CIA director,
John Radcliffe, saying there was no imminent threat to the United States. You had Joe Kent, [clears throat] who's the former national security, um, he was
on there saying there was no imminent threat. You had the vice president saying there was no imminent threat. And Pete Hegth himself acknowledged there was no imminent threat when he said,
"Well, we could just pause it once we start. So they didn't have the predicate under the 1973 war powers resolution to engage
in hostilities and they didn't even have this misunderstood myth predicate that if there's imminent attack you can attack the other side
first. They didn't even have that level of u justification when they went to war in Yemen. And you know one of the
resolutions my staff and I started drafting it. It wasn't our favorite resolution, but when we dug into it, it became one of our favorite resolutions.
He uh tried to prosecute Senator Mark Kelly, who's a veteran himself of the Iraq War and has flown NASA flights.
He's an astronaut. Uh if you remember Mark Kelly said and this was in his capacity as a US senator that you're under no obligation in the
military to follow illegal orders which is true according you know Supreme Court cases ruled that and Hexath tried to prosecute him under military law. So he
abregated the powers of Congress by squatchching the speech of Mark Kelly or trying to or through that threat trying to squaltch the speech of all the
veterans who served in Congress. U but he also abregated the power of the judicial branch by saying well they I'm just going to do this myself. I don't
care what the courts say. We're going to use military tribunal to do this to Senator Mark Kelly. And everybody's got the first amendment. When you're a
veteran, when you're retired from the military, you there's no limit on your First Amendment unless you've got, you know, national secrets still in your
head. You can say whatever you think politically. And so, um, this was really an attack by Secretary Hegsth on
[clears throat] veterans, on their first amendment rights. And then Senator Mark Kelly himself has protection under the speech or debate clause of the Constitution that says members of
Congress can't be prosecuted by the executive branch for anything they say in their official capacity. >> Okay, we're going to take a short break and we're going to return back to this
topic because this is really important. So, we'll be back after the short break. >> The founders gave us a blueprint for liberty. >> We strayed far from that vision. It's
time to bring power home back to the Constitution and back to we the people. The people are the fountain of all legitimate power. And our rights don't
come from government. They come from God. >> The more we understand the Constitution, the more we'll be able to demand that our elected officials follow it.
>> The Constitution doesn't need to be rewritten. It needs to be rewritt. >> It's time to learn the principles and preserve the republic.
>> All right. Welcome back to Burch in the USA. Congressman, thank you for being with us again. We do have a question here. uh more to talk about uh your
press release and your articles of impeachment against Secretary Hegsth today. Um so forcing a privilege vote on the floor directly violates House
leadership and sort of goes against uh the Trump administration. Do you believe you'll garner enough support um to
uh be successful in your efforts? Um, >> well, procedurally, let me tell you procedurally what I think they're going to do. I because I went back and looked
at the history of impeachments. I think to protect people from taking a vote on the substance of the matter and to avoid a debate on the substance of the matter,
they will make a motion to table. And if they succeed in that, that'll be the end of my effort. I would like to encourage people who um don't even plan at the
moment to vote for impeachment to vote against the motion to table because the motion to table is an abrbridgement and infringement and um you know on your
congressional rights to debate these things and I think we're going to have that vote on Thursday because of privilege resolution they have to deal with it within 48 hours and I doubt
they'll cut Congress off early to avoid it. Um I I don't think they'll do that. I think they want to get they'll want to
resolve this before the election. >> So earlier in this interview, you laid out the case for why he should be [clears throat] impeached, but you also
pointed out that he was following illegal orders from the president. He was under no obligation to follow them, but yet he did. However, you however he did um however the president that is did
give those orders as commander-in-chief. uh under article two of the constitution as you know President Trump is the commander and chief of the armed forces and he was the one who authorized
operation epic fury in Iran and operation absolute resolved in Venezuela. So uh why does your resolution not also include an
impeachment of the president given his role uh executing those orders or issuing them? >> Well, frankly Pete Hgsth is the richer
target if you're trying to preserve congressional rights. um to to declare when and where and for how long we wage
war because there's some of these uh articles that I introduced that are unto Pete Hegsath alone. He's the one,
[clears throat] not the president, who created a culture of, uh, disregard for rules of engagement, uh, unconcerned about civilian
casualties and degraded their capacity against the congressional law to um to
minimize civilian casualties in their targeting. So, that's one example. And then when we talked about him going after Senator Mark Kelly, the president
said pjorative things as well about Senator Mark Kerry, but Mark Kelly, but it was Pete Hexath himself who took it upon himself to weaponize that
department. Okay, let's switch topics uh a bit to the to your one of your other resolutions, the Flock Off Act, which
you introduced on uh September 2nd, HR 10221, uh which essentially would ban any sources of federal funds from being used
by state and local uh governments to purchase, install, maintain, operate, or upgrade automated license plate readers
and biometric surveillance cameras. Uh, so why does your resolution stop at just cutting off the funding? Why not have a federal bill that bans uh these cameras
alto together? >> Well, I feel like you know the answer to that already, Christian. So, but I appreciate you asking the question. We
don't have the authority to ban flock cameras, frankly. Um, but we should at a minimum quit funding them. So, if states
and localities want to put cameras up, that's up to them. Um, and and they can adjudicate that and you can go to your
local county government and complain. But what I suspect is they're so addicted to federal money that if we just withheld the money, [snorts]
um, they wouldn't do it. And so, that's my approach here. It's constitutional and it's using the power of the purse, which frankly is my favorite way to
reign in government, big or small. >> So, Congressman, how should Americans balance the arguments from law enforcement and the community uh law
enforcement community, police officers, that these cameras should help solve serious crimes versus the Fourth Amendment and privacy concerns? Is there a compromise anywhere with these
cameras? Well, um, if the compromise involves infringing on the Fourth Amendment and
other aspects of our constitutionally protected rights, no, I wouldn't be for that compromise. There's no compromise there. There may be instances where you
could use cameras to solve crimes, but you you can't use them in real time to track citizens who aren't suspected of
anything. the the Constitution requires that you have probable cause and that you list the things that you're searching for and you can't just go in
and search everybody for everything. There are if if you're talking about in around the edges of what is
constitutional, there are things that I believe are constitutional. For instance, um to pay tolls with your license plate, to associate the fee that
you owe. And so I left that I listed that as an exemption. So you could use these for auto you can use automated
license plate readers only for two purposes if you're taking funding from the federal government according to my bill. And that would be to secure the border.
So if you're trying to keep people from illegally crossing the border, you can have these within a certain distance of the border or to collect tolls on
federal roads. >> Yeah. President Trump has repeatedly claimed that efforts to stop the construction of AI data centers in the US are a win for China. Um, we
[clears throat] saw President Obama make similar arguments about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. If we don't take the lead, then China will, right? So, what do you make of these arguments?
Should Americans forsake property rights in order to stop communist China from achieving AI global dominance? Well, this is where you got to
understand federalism and respect local government. We the the federal government shouldn't be mandating that data centers can go anywhere the
companies want to put them. Um what should happen is local, you know, elected officials should be making these
decisions about allowable land use in different areas. It it's a similar problem. What I see the the root of the
problem here is that data centers if if you were building them what they cost per square foot given the cost of the memory and the chips that you can fit in
a square foot. The cost of building a data center per square foot is astronomical and it's orders of magnitude greater
than the cost of the land that they're being built on. It's it's similar but not as extreme with solar panels. So what you have is this tendency for the
people who are building these and placing them to have very little regard for what's an appropriate use of the land that's going to be underneath of the solar panels or the data centers.
And I think that's best handled at the local level. Although I have offered legislation, again this gets to the power of the purse, to say that um if
you're going to build a solar panel farm, you can't put it on farmland if it gets a federal uh tax deduction or
subsidy, preferential tax treatment or government money. Then in that case, we're going to say, "Well, we're not going to fund the federal government's
not going to fund the depletion of one of our greatest resources, which is arable land in this country." >> All right, let's take a quick break and
when we come back, we'll discuss the Republican Midterm Convention that just happened this past weekend, and the Epstein files. >> Western Islands Publishing is the
arsenal of Americanism. If you go to that website, you will find there that we have created a library of liberty in
three tiers affordable by nearly everyone. One at $50, one at 100, and one at 200.
Go to western islandspublishing.com. We are the arsenal of Americanism.
>> Okay, welcome back. Okay. Republicans held their first ever midterm convention in Dallas where President Trump promised that if Republicans win control of both
the House and Senate, he will issue a $5,000 dividend check to every adult citizen. Vice President JD Vance is also
calling for payments for stay-at-home parents. Do you think, Congressman Massie, that Republican efforts to redistribute the wealth will be enough
to stop the Democrats and the surge of the Democratic Socialists of America candidates this November? >> The irony here, especially in the way
you phrased it, is Republicans are offering socialism as an alternative to socialism. Um, that they're saying,
"Don't vote for socialism. We'll give you we'll give you free money if we win. Um it's I mean it's crazy. A reporter
asked me this week, why do you think they're doing it uh after the election instead of now? Because you control the majority. You could pass this in the
House of Representatives. By the way, this would have to be a bill. Any money that issues from the Treasury has to be authorized and appropriated by Congress. That's just plainly true. So, he's not
going to be cutting these checks without Congress. So, why are we not doing it before? And by the way, George W. Bush, I'm old enough
to remember, uh, he cut checks, but he did it before the election. He gave people like I don't remember, $300 or
$600. I don't know if that was per family or per person. And he did that twice um with the act of Congress as well. Here's why.
What? Here's what Trump has promised with these $5,000 checks. He's promised over a trillion dollars of money to be injected into the economy and it's
either going to be borrowed or printed. And it's all going to happen in the course of a month. If you remember during CO, what did the $1,200 checks do
during CO? Well, they cleared out the shelves at Dick Sporting Goods. Um, you know, there were no kayaks to be bought. You couldn't get an iPhone. Not only
could you not get the latest iPhone because every >> Forget about toilet paper. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. There was a run on toilet paper, but um there was also a chip shortage
that affected manufacturing of cars. But the chip shortage was because Apple sold so many phones because the check was in
the amount of about $1,200 if you remember. Um the price of a nice phone and people went out and bought all the phones and Apple couldn't make them fast
enough. So they went and locked up all the capacity to make chips in the country. So what Trump has promised when he's promised everybody a $5,000 check
is he's promised massive inflation. If he were to do it this week, which is the last week Congress is in session before the election. So this is the only time
in which he could possibly do it is the next two days the House is in session. It would touch off massive inflation that would happen before the November
elections. like it would be immediate. People wouldn't be putting wouldn't be opening up IRA accounts and putting $5,000 in them. They're they're going to
be buying everything that's on the shelves like they did during CO, but it would be even more ridiculous. >> Congressman, we're going to pivot here to another issue that a lot of a lot of
people, a lot of viewers here uh care about. So, uh, along with Congressman Marjorie Taylor Green, Nancy Mace, uh, you've been a crucial voice for the
survivors and victims of Jeffrey Epstein, and we've lost Representative Green. And come January 3rd, when the new 120th Congress is sworn in, uh,
without you and Congresswoman Mace, will all hope be lost for justice? >> H, you know, [clears throat] it's going
to be a different place without me here. There are a few brave people who will um I wouldn't even say follow me. They will lead with me like Lauren Boowbert and
Marjorie Taylor Green and Nancy Mace did. And they all paid an extreme price um for their votes. Trump vetoed a water
bill for Colorado as a way to get back at Lauren Boowbert. And then Congress, the weaklings here, wouldn't even vote to override Trump's veto. So the veto
override failed. And so people went without water because Trump was was so vindictive about that. Now, um, here's
the good news. My colleague Ralph Norman yesterday signed the Epstein discharge petition. He he wasn't one of the
originals uh back in the day. By the way, we've got another Epstein bill, Epstein files transparency act part two that I introduced and started collecting
signatures for a discharge petition. The way the math works is just just like with the original discharge petition a year ago, I need every Democrat plus
four Republicans. And I'm happy to tell you I've got three. I've got myself, I've got Nancy Mace, and I've got Ralph Norman. I just need one more Republican
and then we can pass this through the House. It's actually going quicker than it did uh with the first Epstein Files Transparency Act bill. But Mike Johnson
is trying to thwart me. He cut two work weeks off of our calendar before the election in an effort to slow me down and keep me from getting the votes
before the election. I think when we return after the election, there'll be more people sign it. I'm hopeful. Um uh you know you entered Congress back
in 2012 and critics sometimes claim that you've changed over the years yet your voting record has remained remarkably consistent. Look at the Freedom Index uh
to to to see your voting record, right? Um have you noticed uh organizations or political groups that once supported you moving away from you and which groups um
have remained consistent in supporting your approach to the Constitution and limited government during your time in office? Well, um I've seen a lot of changes
since 2012. You know, when I got here, it was Tea Party wave and everybody was supposedly conservative. Um you had organizations like Club for Growth. I
was one of their poster children. I had perfect score with them or well into the 90s all the time. You had the American Conservative Union um that had a
scorecard uh that I was always in the 90s on. you had freedom work freedom works um what's happened in those and you had
your organization the John Burch Society and the New American Freedom Index well the other organizations have just uh
basically squished out and that's usually a term reserved for congressmen when they get here that what they're squishes because they lose their spine and they become invertebrates. Um
Freedom Works went away. It didn't it couldn't go the distance. it dissolved. Um, and the other organizations under I
guess under pressure from their board members or donors have completely lost their way. Club for Growth, I don't even know if they put out a scorecard
anymore. What would they score? How could they score conservative principles? Um, and and also American Conservative Union. It's it's like an
oxymoron now. Um, so you have these organizations that have really changed their stripes, but what the one thing I have noticed is your organization has
never changed in the in the um 14 years that I've been here and paying attention to these organizations who track congressmen. Who's going to, you know,
watch the congressman if you got to find organizations that you can trust? And I know this when I'm outside of Congress and on my farm or inventing something
and I don't have time to keep an eye on these chuckleheads, I'm going to trust you guys to keep an eye on them. >> Yeah, absolutely.
>> Thank you for that. Thank you. >> Well, we regularly hear from people who agree with many of your positions, but they are reluctant to do so publicly
because they fear of being labeled anti-Trump or attacked by people on their own side. That happens to me all the time. What would you say to conservatives and constitutionalists who
are afraid to publicly defend principles when doing so may put them at odds with their own political party or tribe? >> Well, I think a lot of people are
stepping up. Let me tell you the pitch that I'm making to my colleagues here to try to get that one last Republican signature on the Epstein discharge
petition. I'm going to men and women who are in congressional districts that in a normal election cycle they would win,
but they're polling five points down or 10 points down. And I'm telling them, I've got only got one more hero slot on this Epstein discharge petition. Like,
if you are the 218 signature, there's it's good it's not just good policy. It's good politics for you. and but they
are basically paralyzed with fear from the Trump administration and um it's going to cost them elections because they're going to like lemmings go off
the cliff when in fact they could be with me and Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace um and lead and show people that you're
still for transparency that you haven't changed. History will prove us right. Um, you know, it's hard to be it's hard to stand up in the moment a lot of
times. When I voted against the so-called big beautiful bill, I I in my floor speech, I said, "We're not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
We're putting coal in the boiler, and we're setting a course for the iceberg." And I said it would cause interest rates to go up, the price that we pay for
debt, and that it would cause the deficit to go up. Not just the debt, the rate at which we incur debt would go up because of that bill. And here we are,
guys, uh what is it, 18 months, 16 months later, we've got massive inflation. U it it takes half a week's
paycheck to fill up your gas tank. Uh, if you drive a pickup truck, um, all these things that I said would come true have come true. And I guess the price
you pay in the moment is worth it in history when people realize you were right. >> Absolutely. Well said. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Congressman
Massie. Thank you for joining us here on Birch in the USA. And God bless you. >> Thank you guys. God bless. >> If you enjoyed the show, please
subscribe to us on YouTube and Rumble. Share this episode with your friends and family and help us reach more Americans with the message of constitutional liberty. As always, take care and God
bless. >> [music]

Comments

You have to be logged in. A comment stays up until three different people flag it. Then it comes down. Nobody on our side reads the queue.