On this Salcedo Storm Podcast: Conservative Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, Matt Rinaldi.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
This note isn’t getting a lot of play, at least from my perspective, judging by how significant it is this is put out by Senator Chuck Grassley is office and it was sent to the honorable Christopher rea. The Federal Bureau of Investigation director, dear Attorney General and director Ray Oh, by the way, yeah, Garland was also see seat on this. Since July 25 2022. I have requested information from the Justice Department and the FBI, with respect to legally protected whistleblower disclosures that informed my office of political bias infecting the decision making process and investigations related to the Biden family. Since that date, the Justice Department and FBI have failed to provide responsive records.
This letter is based on years of investigation, including the provision of information, records and allegations from multiple Justice Department whistleblowers that indicate there is and has been an effort among certain Justice Department and FBI officials to improperly delay and stop full and complete investigative activity into the Biden family including, but not limited to ft 1020 threes, referencing the Biden family.
This alleged political infection breaks faith with the American people and it will ruin our government institutions. Should it continue? As just one initial example. I’ve been made aware that at one point in time, the FBI maintained over 40 confidential human sources that provided criminal information relating to Joe Biden, James Biden, and Hunter Biden. An essential question that must be answered is this did the FBI investigate the information or shut it down?
Indeed, if those sources were improperly shut down, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for the FBI. As this letter will address, by way of initial background since August of 2019, Senator Johnson and I have investigated the Biden family’s foreign financial dealings and business arrangements on September 3. So on September 23, I should say 2020 and November 18 2020, we issued reports detailing our findings based in part on hundreds of Treasury Department suspicious activity reports, transcribed interviews, and 1000s of pages of Obama Biden administration government records.
Our findings indicated potential criminal activity to include money laundering, with respect to the members of the Biden family and their business associates, as well as strong financial connections to questionable foreign nationals and foreign governments linked corporate entities. Then, in March and April of 2022, we gave three speeches on the Senate floor and made public bank records supporting the same findings and further connection to the Biden family business to businesses linked to the Communist Chinese government. After that, on October 26 2022, Senator Johnson and I provided records of pages of bank records to US Attorney Weiss, connecting the Biden family to Chinese government linked entities.
Since August 2019. The Justice Department and FBI have refused to answer our questions, cooperate with our investigation, and have made every effort to obstruct and frustrate legitimate and constitutional congressional oversight.
Folks, check out this letter from Chuck Grassley. I don’t think it’s an accident, the way the biased press has been covering other stories of note, ie in Israel, ie the speaker’s race and completely, completely neglected to cover the man who sits in the Oval Office and investigations and the lack of cooperation of our government with those investigations. What do you see from the basket of bias press? You see, oh, President Trump in court today? Oh, the Israel thing. The Hamas thing? Oh, yeah. The speaker fight? Oh, yeah.
That’s all you see. But no, no expansion of investigation. No questions from the press. Excuse me. You were supposed to cooperate in the DOJ and the FBI with congressional oversight in the Senate and you’re not doing it? No. Questions about that. And Chuck Grassley is continuing to put out this type of information. Senator Johnson continuing to put out this kind of information of a massive cover up the Department of injustice, and the FBI, facilitating a massive cover up to protect the least among us, the least worthy, the least gifted among us, those in the Biden family, folks, it would be nice if the entirety of the Republican Party were united.
Sadly, as the aforementioned speaker fight indicates, the Republicans are far from United. And it’s not a problem that just impacts the national Republicans. We’re feeling it too in Texas. The conservative chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, Matt Rinaldi comes your way next on the Salcedo storm podcast.
Folks want to welcome the conservative chairman of the Republican Party of Texas Matt Rinaldi sir, welcome back.
Thank you for having me.
First off, you and I are speaking on a day when the Republican Party on the national level has after what 14 candidates three weeks and all manner of dysfunction, airing their their deep divisions inside that party have finally decided on Congressman Mike Johnson to be the next speaker, who I’m confident in saying is a very smart guy, and is also a conservative, your thoughts?
Yeah, I don’t know much about Mike Johnson, but from all the people who are happy about him being speaker and all the people were very angry. I think I like him now.
He is very much. You know what to be quite frank, he reminds me a lot of you really smart guy. Very conservative, very principled. And I really would like to know the circumstances after Jim Jordan was opposed in the way that he was the circumstances behind his ascendancy. But we’ll see if the Republican Party can earn back the trust on the national level that they have lost. The reason why I bring this up, is because I think it’s going to dovetail into our conversation about Texas, the National Party, over the last three weeks, you’ve seen all manner of individuals coming out some Republicans who say yeah, we’re gonna have to do a deal with Democrats. Some of those Republicans saying, you know, we don’t like Jim Jordan, because he gets in the way of the appropriations process, you know, because that’s all the money and we kind of like the way the Democrats are doing things and all the money that we’ve got available. Others of them in the Republican caucus are saying I hate Matt gates, and anybody that Matt gates supports. I’m not gonna vote for him. He was he was Romper Room, the rent the Romper Room part of that caucus. So we have a similar situation in the Texas House with individuals who have more in common with the Democrat party and I think it who call themselves Republicans, and I think that is the genesis of the problems that We are seeing here in the state of Texas. What are your thoughts?
Yeah, I mean, as I’ve said repeatedly, the Democrats control the Texas House and they control the Texas House because we we have a situation in Texas and we have had a situation like, was the worst case scenario that would have played out in the house in this chaos. It’s everybody was talking about, well, what happens if a bunch of moderate Republicans get together with Democrats, and pick a speaker that’s supported by Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats? And everyone is like that would be army get in the house? Well, we have learned to get to here. It’s been the case for over a decade. And that is the source of a lot of the infighting you see among Republicans. And a lot of the problems that we’ve seen out of the Texas House showing conservative legislation passed by the Senate.
And that is the brainchild, the baby, if you will of a representative by the name of Charlie Garin, who is I believe one of the last still elected members of that gang of 11. That came up with this stabbing of the back of conservatives and the derailing of conservative priorities of the Republican Party, about a let was 11 years ago. I think it was exactly when he and his gang of 11 led to the election, the ouster of kradic and then the election of speaker Joe Straus, who ran the House of Representatives as a moderate squish Republican. And it’s only gotten worse since Joe Straus. Yes.
Yeah, I mean, it was Joe Straus, you had a guy who at least had morals and values and would keep his word even though he was very politically liberal. I mean, now you have Dade Phelan who’s an open war against the Republican Party, you know, in the general, you know, attacking the Republican Party of Texas. And and it’s, it’s evident that it has gotten worse under Phelan than Straus. I can’t believe I’m actually saying that having served under Strauss.
But that’s, that’s exactly what happened. Well, let’s, let’s drill down to that. You say he’s attacking the Republican Party of Texas. And he is because you’re running it and he is demanding you step down. He’s doing this across the board to a lot of individuals, conservatives, who would be challenging his pro Democrat left wing Republicans and threatening the Democrats control over the Texas House.
Yeah, I mean, well, it started where he just tried to ignore us try to ignore the Republican Party in Texas. And you saw that with like Justin Hollins comments during session, like God, the party doesn’t matter. And then I think during the Paxton impeachment, and the subsequent polling of House members, including Dade Phelan, seeing how bad their polls were, they realize that a Republican Party that actually stands for Republican values and communicates those values, and communicates the truth to individuals about what’s actually happening in the Texas House. That’s a very big threat to their power. So now you see them, not ignoring us anymore, but directly attacking us and going to war. With us.
The conservative chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, Matt Rinaldi is our guest right now. And you know, there are all these rules out there in the Republican Party bylaws to protect pro Democrat Republicans like John Cornyn, like pro Democrat Republicans, like Kay Granger, like like the aforementioned Dade Phelan, you know, Justin Hollen comes out and says, the Republican Party doesn’t matter. These left wing Republicans are attacking the Republican Party, aren’t they in violation of any rules? Can’t can’t they be kicked out of the party for their conduct?
Well, under the current rules of the party, they can be censured, which allows the Republican Party to oppose them in elections and spend a certain amount of money in their primary election against them. Of course, the Republican Party’s you know, the core of the Republican Party’s power under the current rules that it has, is that as a bully pulpit, as as the brand of the Republican Party, and by simply speaking the truth as to what’s happening during the Paxton impeachment during session, I mean, that’s the biggest threat to them, right? They want to, they want to put on theater to pretend that they’re acting in the best interests of conservatives. And when, when that’s exposed this theater By by a trusted brand like the Republican Party, and that’s a threat to their power, and they’re acting accordingly.
See, and that’s you brought up the brand. And I think that’s that’s a key point because the clown show that the Republican Party had put on on the national level and this speaker fight. It destroyed it completely obliterated the Republican brand. And I, I think that same because of the Charlie guerin’s. The John Cornyn is the K Grangers of the world. They’re doing the same thing here locally to the Republican Party of Texas, the Dade Phelans. They’re doing all of this, because they are basically saying, you know, Republican doesn’t equal conservative Republican equals a lawmaker that gets up every day and tries to find the nearest Democrat but chic on which to plant their lips. And that seems to be ruining the reputation of the Republican Party. Is that Is that a fair analysis on my part?
Yeah, I guess I would, I think it’s fair, I would probably put it a different way. Not that not the budget thing really. Now with the buttcheeck, that was in my first spot. No, I was thinking the like, on a national level, that’s people are watching Fox News at night or Newsmax, and they’re getting the national news. And what they’re seeing is an RNC that doesn’t do anything to affect their lives or do anything on policy, and basically just sends them fundraising emails every few days, right? So they don’t see an RNC that reflects their values or is protecting the Republican brand. And they see establishment politicians that are hurting the brand. So I think that in their mind, has hurt the brand of the party. I think on a state level, you see a Republican Party in Texas, that is hacking in a very different way. We’re taking policy positions. We have legislative priorities. We’re trying to tell people, you’re a grassroots, you’re a Members, we are going to amplify your voice using what we have in the organization we have. And you’ve seen politicians in the I mean, in the Senate, it’s like, we’re completely simpatico, right, because lieutenant governor’s trying to he has the same goals as we do, right. So even, you know, even when one thing may be a bit different, or a priority may be a bit different. We’re working together. The house is not like they’re working for the Democrats. They’re a part of their governing coalition, which puts them at odds with the party. So they want our party to be a lot more like the RNC, you see people saying that their surrogates saying, just win elections and shut up. And that’s what they want us to do. And we’re not doing that. So we’re targeting.
Right and winning elections, when when the those who are winning elections call themselves Republicans, but are delivering for Democrat priorities. That’s the problem. And that can’t be allowed Democrat priorities cannot be allowed to succeed in the name of the Republican Party. Else. What’s the use? What’s what’s the point of having two political parties? If there is no debate and, and a different way of approaching government, folks, we’re talking to Matt Rinaldi here on the Salcedo storm podcast. He is the conservative chairman of the Republican Party of Texas. So let’s let’s drill down into this because, you know, what’s happening on a global level with the the Israeli Hamas conflict, and how emotions are being galvanized now against against those who would dehumanize Jews, and even Democrats, a lifelong Democrat, Alan Dershowitz, who is very concerned about the growing anti semitic strain in the Democrat Party. And you know, you know, the usual suspects Ayana Presley, Corey Bush, Jamaal Bowman, who on this day was convicted of pulling down that fire alarm by the way, he committed a crime. And then AOC, Rashida MF to leave and the other Jew hater caucus in the Democrat Party. The National Democrat Party has not condemned them by name. The Texas Democrat Party has not condemned them by name. Neither has the Speaker of the Texas House condemned Democrats by name for their anti semitism. And fact he’s gone a step further. He is He has said that even though they’re Democrats will not condemn their Jew haters in their caucus. He still will promote Democrats to powerful committee chairmanships. That seems to me to Be a step too far. What about you?
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s outrageous that we are appointing Democrats who are actively still promoting anti semitic organizations like Black Lives Matter to power positions in the house. And then meanwhile, where, where you have a republican party where there are anti semitic elements among Republicans, but they’re marginalized. They’re, they’re rejected by the vast majority of the party. And the Democrat Party were their mainstream people from the squat, like, representative to leap and others that are actively opposing Israel and supporting Hamas and the Palestinians. And you have a speaker in Texas that’s appointing those people to positions of power.
It’s absolutely disgusting. It is. And you know, he has a speaker Dade Phelan has been very, very vocal about saying anti semitism has no place in the Republican Party. But he will not say the same of the Democrats. He will be where it actually does have a place. Yes, exactly. He refuses to demand that anti semitism be driven by the out of the Democrat Party, of which he is putting in charge of powerful committees inside of the Texas House. And so he does it. So instead, he goes after the Republican Party, because that’s the party that is a threat to his power. And he uses some Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game in order to find find ways to, to to implicate everybody in the Republican Party, whereas he’s appointing people to committee chairmanships who have direct involvement with such groups.
Yeah, they the Kevin Bacon game is that’s a pretty good analogy. And that leads me to the speaker Phelan adopting a courtesy of his his Obama parliamentarian, adopting the tactics and the the values of the American left in particular censorship. What have we covered this extensively and actually interviewed representative Tony Tinderholt, he is now prohibited from making parliamentary inquiries. Without running by those those inquiries by the the Democrat, Obama parliamentarian or the chair first. Now this is this is a process by which Democrats often abuse inside the Texas House with Dade Phelan’s, complete blessings, and with the Republican Party, so called leadership’s blessings however, Tony Tinderholt a Former opponent, for speaker of date feeling we’ve got to point that out. He is silenced and his his voters is 20,000 voters disenfranchised. What is the Party’s position on Dade Phelans In essence disenfranchising 200,000 Texas voters?
I mean, it’s it’s it’s absurd. It’s it’s horrible. I mean, we that’s why the Republican Party of Texas is Executive Committee, almost unanimously called for date fields removal as speaker just in their most recent meeting. And I supported that as well. I voted for that as well. What Dade Phelan its downfalls going to be is his overreaching and heavy handed efforts to silence people and to resist change. What happened at the beginning of session as we came into session? Right, Dade Phelan was? Well, I’m sorry, let me go back as a party, we were focused on the structural incentives that have caused speakers in the past to give Democrats too much power in the house, namely, appointing Democrats to committee chair position right. In, in Congress, you don’t have that. Right. So so there’s nothing suborn Democrats have nothing to gain by supporting a Republican for speaker because of the Republican candidate. He can’t hand out power to Democrats. Here, he can’t. So we wanted to remove that barrier. So we had a very strong campaign, we made it a legislative priority to eliminate Democrat chairs in the Texas House, the only legislature in the country that does this. It’s the only house of the legislature in the country that does this. And Dade Phelan could have had a vote on it. You don’t want he could have even had a vote on it and whipped votes. But he didn’t do that. He instead silenced the representatives that wanted to bring this up as an amendment to the rules. And since then, he’s been fighting back against these checks. changes by silencing reps who disagreed with Democrats having power and then at the end of session, took it even further and tried to impeach our Attorney General and undo an election. So Dade Phelan is I think overreached in pushing back against what in the beginning was just structural changes we wanted now it’s clear we need to change this week right.
And he’s he’s declared an all out war to preserve his power that is gifted to him by by Democrats. And the the hypocrisy of this man knows no bounds. He uses the excuse with the the biased press that’s that swallows this stuff, hook, line and sinker, because I think they know the game. I really do. And a lot of them lean left anyway, so they just know the game. So they let him get away with it. But he says the reason why we here in Texas, we’re different. We’re different than the legislature on the federal level. And that’s why we share power here no matter who is whoever, no matter who’s in charge, who’s in the majority. And then the guy uses as as an impetus to silence Tony Tinderholt, he uses Speaker Nancy Pelosi his words, from 2010. If memory serves to justify silencing conservative Tony Tinderholt the hypocrisy of this man knows no bounds.
Yeah, I mean, the difference between the Texas House in Congress, what makes Congress dysfunctional is not the fact that Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi don’t have committee chairmanships, the way to make it better isn’t to give Democrats more power. That’s absolutely absurd. I don’t think any Republican would agree with that. They’re trying to find anything different in the way Congress does in order to sound like, because it’s different. That’s why we’re better. No, we’re better because we have more conservative electorate. And generally in the Republican primary, the voters force conservatives to at least give them something. And then meanwhile, House leadership in the Republican House leaders in Texas, like Dade Phelan are fighting against that. And that’s a problem that we need to fix.
Well, we’ve had quite an extensive conversation about the current issues plaguing I know, we’re in the midst of a special session, the current issues plaguing the state of Texas, which seemed to be centered around the cancerous element in the Republican Party in the Texas House, because of all the power they give the Democrats. what’s the way forward? I I’m pretty confident that the Republican Party of Texas under your leadership will continue to be a Conservative Party, unlike the Texas House. I know the Senate is going to continue to do its job. The governor has been very, very clear about his priorities, and particularly when it comes to parental school choice, which is at odds with the Democrat Party and with Dade Phelan and his and his left wing lieutenants. Where do we go from here?
I mean, I think the only place to go from here is to change House leadership. I mean, listen to if there was a house leader that everybody could agree on, that would not give Democrats as much power as they currently do in the house. I think that’s the way forward. And that’s the way out of this chaos that’s currently happening. My position at the beginning of session was in this political climate. You cannot have Democrats chairing committees and whole wielding power in a Republican legislature without chaos like this ensuing. Because there’s no there’s no common ground anymore between the parties. We’re seeing exactly what I had warned about at the beginning of session play out right now. So I think Republicans do need to choose a new leader. They need to take away Democrat power in the house. We’re saying take away committee chairmanships, we’re not even saying take away the power to pass bills. If you were in Congress, Democrats wouldn’t even be passing bills. Even the Senate lets Democrats pass some bills for their, you know, for their local areas. So just to take away the crux of the core of your power, which is these committee chairmanships if a speaker does that he will be a Republican hero in Texas, and it’ll be Speaker for life if he wants it. We’ll see if somebody steps up and does it.
Right. And then of course, it’s not just a feeling that needs to be worried about it is his lieutenants, the aforementioned Charlie Garen, who have more in common with socialists and communists than they do with conservatives and traditional Republicans. You mentioned polling at the beginning of our conversation, I guess we’ll end it there with what are you Seeing as to these republicans who voted for Paxton, who voted against parental schools voted for Paxton impeachment, I should say, who voted against parental school choice and education freedom, these Republicans who facilitated the killing of the lowest Kolkhorst bill, which would have prevented America’s enemies from buying land in Texas, what are you seeing in the polling in these Republicans districts?
Well, I mean, Dade Phelan, polling has gone way south. I mean, in January, he had about 60%, approval, 10% disapproval in his district. By October that was down to 35%. Approval. 49% disapproval, wow. Which is a huge swing. Now, in districts like Charlie gerunds, Charlie safe, a lot of his lieutenants are safe. You know who they’re hurting. Those freshmen who came up and voted like they were told, they’re not protecting those freshmen members who trusted them who relied on who they’re telling, you don’t know the way things work. Just trust in us, a lot of those people are going to lose and a lot of people who trusted Dade Phelan and listen to him are going to lose this primary, then those are the people are hurt the most. And Charlie Garrett will skate by and find new people to co opt in to support Dade Phelan that will lose their next primary too. So that’s the sad thing about this is data isn’t is not only not looking out for the Republican Party or Republican voters, he’s not even looking out for his own Republican members who are trusting.
Well, that’s true because his his number one priority is the Democrat Party. Matt Rinaldi everybody. He’s the conservative. Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, sir, always appreciate the visit.
Thank you. I appreciate it. Chris.
My fellow Texans, actually my fellow Americans, only you can get rid of pro Democrat Republicans. Only you. That’s my public service announcement for today. That’s gonna do it for this Salcedo storm podcast. Do me a favor, do yourself a favor visit a couple of websites. The first one Texas scorecard.com That’s where you keep track of all the efforts from conservatives to bring much needed reform to the Texas House that will see the majority of voters in Texas be well represented in the Texas State House and not have conservative priorities, completely torpedoed also go to Chris saucedo.com That’s where you track us down on social media and check out the grid Salcedo shows on AM 700k SCV the voice of Texas that’s am talk radio. It’s simulcast on end to on rumble and on getter. Also check out Newsmax one and the ghost Salcedo show they’re in the afternoon four o’clock Eastern until five a joey visit again my friends remember this a society’s worth isn’t measured by how much power is stolen by government. It is measured by how much power is reserved for you and me. We the People stay safe out there my friends.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
