Earlier this year, you swore in two Republican members during the pro forma session, so why not swear in Adelita Grijalva, who was elected two weeks ago during a pro forma session? Does it have to do with her 218 signature on the discharge petition? The discharge petition has nothing to do with that at all. [00:00:16] We will swear her in when everybody gets back. It's a ceremonial duty. Look, we'll schedule it, I guess, as soon as she wants. It has nothing to do with it. Okay, that was said on day seven of the government shutdown, and we are now on day 16. And representative elect Adelita Grijalva [00:00:36] is still just that representative elect, because she has still not been sworn in. Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona, won a special election on September 23rd to represent Arizona's 17th district after her father, Representative Raul [00:00:51] Grijalva, died in March. That was almost a month ago that she was elected so. And she won also in a landslide, 69% to 29%. But regardless of who won the election, the election signaled something much greater for the Republican Representative Thomas Massie, and his petition to force [00:01:09] a vote to release the Epstein files. So here's what Massie had to say. He said both of the candidates on the ballot promised to sign my discharge petition, and one of them won, obviously. And so now we're going to have 218 signatures, and we're going to force a vote on releasing those files. [00:01:26] While meanwhile, according to a House leadership aide, it's customary practice to swear in new members while Congress is in session. But it's not mandatory. They don't have to wait for anything. Johnson swore in Republican Representative Jimmy Petronas and Randy fine during [00:01:44] a pro forma session earlier this year, so it's pretty clear why Grijalva has not yet been sworn in. But Mike Johnson is going to continue to just deflect and make excuses, and it's just what he loves to do. Let's watch. Let's just be really clear. [00:02:00] If I were a Republican, I would have already been sworn in. That's right. That is not acceptable. They're. They're afraid of me. Signing and being the 218 signer 218. So she says that you're afraid of her being the 218 signer to the Epstein [00:02:16] petition to release the files, that if she were a Republican, you would have sworn her in. What do you say? I say, bless her heart. She's a representative elect. She doesn't know how it works around here. We're going to give her the oath of office as soon as we get back to regular session. As soon as Chuck Schumer and the Democrats vote to reopen the government. [00:02:33] We've got a lot to do here. They're the ones holding it up. What Grijalva doesn't understand is that there's a certain tradition and process that we engage in here to administer the oath. My colleague, Representative Julia Letlow from Louisiana, was elected in a special election under very similar circumstances. [00:02:50] And Nancy Pelosi was speaker at the time. She took 25 days to administer the oath to to Julia Letlow. Nobody threw a fit nobody, you know, engaged in a publicity stunt because Nancy Pelosi was doing that on the legislative calendar. I'm doing exactly the same thing. [00:03:06] Oh my God, as a fake Southerner, that, bless her heart, has me incensed. So patronizing. And Nancy Pelosi wasn't being faced with a petition with enough votes to force the release of the Epstein files. He still didn't even talk about that. So Grijalva also could have been sworn in before the shutdown, by the way. [00:03:23] But that's just not what happened. Johnson decided against that for some unknown reason. There is simply no logical reason why Grijalva has not yet been sworn in. And because she hasn't been sworn in yet, she's not able to hire staff or go anywhere in the Capitol without an escort. [00:03:39] She did finally get the keys to her office, but there are no working phone lines, no internet, no computers. And perhaps most importantly, her district is currently in limbo because she cannot act as a representative or perform any kind of constituent services. [00:03:54] The people of her district currently have no representation in the house. So now Arizona AG Kris Mayes is weighing the The possibility of, you know, maybe taking legal action to get all of this resolved finally. [00:04:10] Yeah. I mean, I really think that we are going to have no other choice except to take Speaker Johnson to court if he refuses to respond to us, if he doesn't, quickly swear in Adelaida Grijalva again depriving her [00:04:28] of the ability to help her constituents. We've had some flooding out here in Arizona. She has no way to help those people in southern Arizona who have been impacted by that flooding. So many other things that she she can and should be doing [00:04:46] as a, as a, an elected member of Congress. And so if I have to, I'll take him to court. You know, again, there's no legitimate reason for him to refuse to swear her in right now. [00:05:01] So she wrote in a letter to Johnson on Tuesday, saying you and your staff have provided ever shifting, unsatisfactory and sometimes absurd stories as to why. Miss Grijalva has not been sworn in. We thus demand that Miss Grijalva be immediately sworn into office [00:05:17] and admitted to her rightful seat. We ask that within two days of the date of this letter, you provide this office with your assurance of when and where that will take place, which must be immediate and prior to the date the house comes back into regular session. Should you fail to provide such assurance, we will be forced to seek judicial relief [00:05:35] to protect Arizona and the residents of its seventh Congressional District. Brett. A lot of excuses. And he never addressed the thing that everyone wants him to address, which is, are you doing this because you don't want to release the Epstein files? He is like, he's making all these excuses like, oh, we usually do it this way. [00:05:54] I mean, if she wants to be sworn in, I'll just swear her in. I'll just, like, get it scheduled. No big deal. And then no follow up on that. He's saying, oh, bless her heart, she doesn't know how this works. Just because she hasn't been in Congress before doesn't mean you can't know how things work, right? And I'm sure she's also being mentored by other Congress people on the Democrat [00:06:12] side who are telling her how things work if she doesn't already know for herself. So this is the whole like, pandering to Donald Trump with this and protecting these whoever is in the Epstein files. It's very, very tired. And then using the government shutdown as an excuse for this is also very insincere. [00:06:31] Let's say I think that's the nicest way I can put it, because, yeah, like she was elected prior to the government shutdown. And then he's also trying to blame the Democrats for their own Democrat not being sworn in as of yet. Brett, how much longer can he do this? How? [00:06:47] Until he runs out of excuses. He can't just keep saying the same things over and over again. He can. He can do like, this is his job, right? His job is to be the person who creates favorable votes for his side. [00:07:03] So he either is. He thinks if something gets passed, it's a law for him or he it's a it's a loss for him. Or if something even makes it to create an opportunity where his side can have an unfavorable outcome, he's not doing his job. [00:07:20] So this is his job. He's not not doing his job. But what does that mean? That means this is absolutely so that we can't see the Epstein files. That's it. Like, what is he saying? He's saying like, I want to be more like Nancy Pelosi is his argument. [00:07:39] I'm being just like Nancy Pelosi. And we Republicans know that's awesome. It doesn't make any sense. And this is so horrible for him. His hair might be absolutely perfect every second of the day put in place, [00:07:54] obviously, by the power of whatever demon he sold his soul to. He reminds me of the guy from True Blood who goes on there and seems to be a good church going guy. But as soon as the camera turns off, he turns into a blood sucking, [00:08:10] evil, depraved vampire. I always saw him as a Keebler elf. No. See, that's the thing is, my cynicism about, like, the faux pious. Completely. I can't get past that and into delicious Nabisco treats. I mean, I like yours better, I think. [00:08:27] I love, I love E.L. Fudge and Stripe cookies. My God. But, like, let's look at why he is keeping the government shutdown. The Republicans have all the power. Everybody's heard that they got the presidency, the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate. They have all the power. [00:08:44] They could very easily decide to work with Democrats and give them concessions. The problem is the concession the the Democrats want keeps people with health coverage. [00:08:59] The Republicans are keeping up two things right now. Right. They're preventing or the the Republicans want to take people off health care. They want to take people off life support. They want to put people in a position. This is explicitly what this vote is about and why the government shut down. [00:09:18] They want to make it so people have to choose between going bankrupt or dying or both. That's that's what this man of God, this guy who loves Jesus so much, he tells his kid when he looks at porn or something, I don't remember. [00:09:35] And then the second thing 80% of Americans are, according to a poll I read recently, numbers may have changed. Want to see the Epstein files Donald Trump ran? And I'm going to get rid of the deep state. [00:09:50] And I mean Epstein files. The only reason we don't see the Epstein files is has got an even more Zack Morris hair wave than I do, and he's doing it on behalf of Donald Trump. [00:10:09] Prove me wrong if I'm wrong. This guy is in the FBI files. They know it. I'm just repeating what people who voted for Trump have been saying for a very long time. This is why the Republicans have the power to a a non-zero extent. [00:10:27] People want to see the FBI files. This guy's keeping them away from us. And and I don't he can keep doing it until there's too much pressure. But the more he does it, the better it is for us, and the worse it is for pretty much, his his people. Yeah, I'm kind of at this point, just not even expecting [00:10:45] to get those files from our government. I think that they will find their way out to the public through other means. I don't know what those means are, but I know that there can't be just like one copy of these files that our government has. So that's my not so conspiratorial conspiracy theory. [00:11:01] So every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.