Judging Freedom - Thomas Massie on Stopping the Biden Vaccine Mandates & Suing Nancy Pelosi

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

Representative Thomas Massie from the great state of Kentucky joins Judge Andrew Napolitano on a brand new Judging Freedom. Discussions include the Massie Family Christmas Card, federal courts enjoining the Biden vaccine mandates, American debt, and finally why Thomas Massie is suing Nancy Pelosi.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Spring is in the air, and at Minky Couture, we're celebrating this joyful season with warmth, love, and the softest, coziest blankets. Whether you're cuddling up after an Easter egg hunt or gifting a little extra comfort to someone special, our luxury blankets make every moment even sweeter, from our Minky family to yours. Happy Easter! May your day be filled with love, laughter, and all the cozy moments you can dream of. Visit us online at Minkicouture.com or stop by one of our stores to find your perfect Minky hug today. Hello, everyone. Judge Napolitano here. Welcome to Judging Freedom, my podcast where I get to think

as I wish and say what I think and interact with all kinds of friends. Today, a man I admire most, Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky. I sometimes call him the Ron Paul of Congress, but Ron Paul may have been the precursor to the Thomas Massey of Congress. Congressman Massey, it's a pleasure. Welcome here. Hey, thanks for having me on, Judge. Tell me about this Christmas card that you sent out that got, according to Brian Thomas, our mutual friend, that got a response from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Yes, imagine that. I'm wondering if the Pope is OK, because the Pope hasn't commented on my Christmas card yet. Literally everybody on the planet has commented on this Christmas picture.

My family and I took this picture a year ago, and I found it in my inbox or in my file folder. And I thought, wow, the world's never seen this. And I asked my wife, could I put it on Twitter? And in a moment of bad judgment, she allowed me to do it. And so it's a picture of me and all of my kids and my son-in-law holding a very powerful weapons in front of the Christmas tree. Now, in Ghostbusters, they said never cross the streams. They had three streams and you could tear the universe up if you cross the streams. This tweet crossed the streams. I've got family, I've got guns, and I've got Christmas in one picture.

And the tweet of this picture has reached 107 million people on Twitter alone. Oh, my goodness. What did the Archbishop of Canterbury say about it? Honestly, I didn't pay attention. I thought, don't you want to make the point? All right, to matters more important. I saw you with Daniel McAdams are in a piece written by our friend Dan McAdams is the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute, rejoicing, as I did, and as most people watching us now have done, that a federal court yet again has enjoined President Biden's vaccine mandate. So of the five vaccine mandates,

three have been enjoined, the one involving 100 or more workers, the one involving Medicare workers, and the one involving federal contractors. Isn't it about time the president learned the lesson that he doesn't get to write the laws and only Congress can write the laws? He has weaponized all of these agencies. So anybody who thinks we can pet the rattlesnake, you know, any Republican who gets elected and says, well, let's just keep funding CMS. Let's just keep funding the, you know, what was it, OSHA. Let's just keep funding all of these folks and they'll be nice to us. No, they were all, what's more troubling or as troubling as Joe Biden trying to make law through an edict is that these agencies complied and they didn't push back. They didn't say you're asking us to carry out something illegal and unconstitutional. They dutifully complied. And that's troubling to me. No federal government should have all of these resources to weaponize against its people. And at the beginning of all this, I said, this is Joe Biden trying to be a bully.

If he really thought it was this dangerous, he would come to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, who control majorities,ities and say we need you to pass a law and he didn't do that he went he just went out on a limb that he knew was going to fall on him. I can't imagine that congress when acts would enact such a law particularly with the 60 vote threshold required in the senate I also can't imagine that members of Congress would want to stick their necks out to the point of forcing their constituents to be vaccinated against their will, a position the federal government has never taken in 230 years. Yeah, it's ridiculous, but we have forced them to stick their necks out in committees. So I've been able to force, working with my colleagues, votes in the Judiciary Committee and the Transportation

Committee. Those are the two committees I serve on, where when they bring a bill through, we offer an amendment on it. And unlike the full House of Representatives, where a rules committee can keep you from offering amendments, they can't stop us in these committees. So we've offered amendments to defund preemptively or post fact these mandates and vaccine passports. And every Democrat has voted against defunding these things in committee in those two committees. So therefore, it never gets out of committee and never gets onto the floor of the House of Representatives for a full-fledged debate. Correct. But we've put a few of them on record inside of their committees, and the American people should take a look at the votes that happen in committees, not just the ones on the floor.

You and I have talked about this many times, Congressman. Does anybody besides you and maybe your fellow Kentuckian Senator Paul raise constitutional objections to these things that whether the president wants to do it on his own or even if the Congress wanted to do it? The Congress doesn't have the authority to force people to take injections, much less the president. That's right. Well, here's the problem. There was some bad precedent set under Donald Trump, for instance, with the eviction moratorium. He used the CDC to intervene in all private rental contracts, which are regulated at the state level. And that was a Donald Trump edict, which they dutifully carried out.

And then Joe Biden tried to renew it. But by that time, it made its way up to the Supreme Court and they struck it down. And then there's the bump stock precedent where the ATF, who was basically who had given letters they had written in writing, you know, letters saying this, these are okay, these are legal, then they reverse their position under Donald Trump, he could have told the ATF director don't do this. But now those precedents have been set my colleagues, many of them did not speak up. Now I'll give a shout out to Chip Roy of Texas. He was with me saying, hey, this is unconstitutional, Mr. President, when it was our president.

And so we have some authority to speak on this because we don't blow with the wind, depending on who the president is. Well, you know, my hat is off to you, as are the hats of people watching us now that you that you do things like this. For years, it used to be the members of Congress would follow whatever the president wanted. So the same people that are saying we can't raise the debt, Republicans that are saying we can't raise the debt ceiling now raised it astronomically when George W. Bush was borrowing trillions for fruitless wars. There are very few people that are intellectually honest like you are. I'm smiling because we're such good friends. It's kind of funny to praise your friend, but it's true. You are the model of intellectual honesty, and that gives you the cachet with which to make the type of argument that you and Congressman Roy, whom I also respect, have been making.

Well, I've got the bumps and bruises to prove it. Now, we're in an interesting time of Congress right now. You know, in my eight and a half years of serving, I've never been in this position except for this Congress, where we are in the minority in the House, we're in the minority in the Senate, and the other party controls the White House. So I'm actually not getting beaten up by my own party for calling out the constitutional infractions. In fact, they're happy to do it right now. It's going to be interesting to me to see which of these freshmen, and we've got a lot of good freshmen in the GOP, carry out that constitutional conviction when, say, we get the majority and

these spending bills are our spending bills, or when we get the majority and these spending bills are our spending bills, or when we get the White House back and it's our president who's carrying out these edicts. That's when we'll know whether the people who got elected this Congress, and there are many good ones, that's when their medal will be tested. I think the Thomas Massey-like devotion to the Constitution is very, very rare. And I regretfully and sadly predict Republicans will march in lockstep with what Kevin McCarthy wants to do if and when he becomes the speaker. I mean, look at that $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending. That's virtually the same thing that Donald Trump said he wanted four years ago. And if he had been a little more astute

about it, he might have gotten it through and Republicans would have voted for it. But this time they voted against it. I would have voted against it. You voted against it because it's unconstitutional. They voted against it just because the Democrats wanted it. It was loaded with all kinds of things that are not infrastructure. You know, I'm not against infrastructure. And I believe there are places like with locks and dams and interstates and aviation where there is a federal nexus. But they really take this to the extreme. We shouldn't be building sidewalks in local cities or bike paths. It's hard to argue there's a federal nexus there.

Right, right. Congressman Massey, it's always a pleasure. Thank you very much for joining us. I hope the sound turns out okay. Next time we'll make sure it's working properly. All the best to you and Merry Christmas. I would ask you to publicize that Christmas card, but 100 million people looking at your Christmas card is an awful lot.

Yeah, that's a lot. My family's going through quite a bit here. We're taking calls right now in my office, right on the other side of this wall, there are people still steaming. And this was tweeted on Saturday. One other thing, if you have just a quick moment, I'm suing Nancy Pelosi in federal court over a constitutional issue. And the judge heard all our arguments last week, which and he says it's a case of first impression, which means that we are going to be making law in the courts now. When you're suing her over. Well, she reduced our salaries in contravention of the 27th Amendment as punishment. You told me about this. You have a very, very strong case. Very strong case.

She's violated the Constitution in two places. Now, the Constitution says each house can make its own rules, but there are certain things you are precluded from. And one of them is varying the salaries that, you know, they said that you can't vary the salary without an intervening election. And that was the 27th Amendment. But the base Constitution said our salaries are set by law, which means the Senate and the president would have to agree. And I think the strongest argument that got the judge's attention in federal court last week was when my attorney said, you know, the Constitution also says your salary can't be varied. You go, Congressman Massey. That got his attention. Thank you so much. All the best on the litigation. Stay the way you are.

Merry Christmas to you and your family. Merry Christmas, Judge, to you and all your listeners.