# Congressional Record/Volume 167/Issue 4/House/Counting Electoral Votes/Arizona Objection Debate/Gaetz Speech

​Mr. Gaetz. Madam Speaker, one of the first things we did when the House convened today was to join together to extend our grace and our kindness and our concern for a colleague who has experienced just an insurmountable amount of grief with his family. And I want all of our fellow Americans watching to know that we did that because we care about each other and we don’t want bad things to happen to each other, and our heart hurts when they do.
Now, I am sure there are plenty of folks over there who don’t like me too much and there are few of them that I don’t care for too much. But if anybody had been hurt today, it would have been even more of a catastrophe than we already saw, and I think that is an important point for the country.
Another important point for the country is that this morning, President Trump explicitly called for demonstrations and protests to be peaceful. He was far more—you can moan and groan, but he was far more explicit about his calls for peace than some of the BLM and leftwing rioters were this summer when we saw violence sweep across this Nation.
Now, we came here today to debate, to follow regular order, to offer an objection, to follow a process that is expressly contemplated in our Constitution; and for doing that, we got called a bunch of seditious traitors.
Now, not since 1985 has a Republican President been sworn in absent some Democrat effort to object to the electors; but when we do it, it is the new violation of all norms. And when those things are said, people get angry.
Now, I know there are many countries where political violence may be necessary, but America is not one such country.
Madam Speaker, it was wrong when people vandalized and defaced your home. It was wrong when thugs went to Senator Hawley’s home. And I don’t know if the reports are true, but The Washington Times has just reported some pretty compelling evidence from a facial recognition company showing that some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters. They were masquerading as Trump supporters, and, in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group antifa.
Now, we should seek to build America up, not tear her down and destroy her. And I am sure glad that, at least for one day, I didn’t hear my Democrat colleagues calling to defund the police.
Now, I appreciate all the talk of coming together, but let us not pretend that our colleagues on the left have been free of some antidemocratic impulses. Just because we signed on to legal briefs and asked courts to resolve disputes, there were some on the left who said that we should not even be seated in the body, that we ought to be prosecuted, maybe even jailed. Those arguments anger people.
But people do understand the concepts of basic fairness, and no competition, contest, or election can be deemed fair if the participants are subject to different rules.
Baseball teams that cheat and steal signs should be stripped of their championships. Russian Olympians who cheat and use steroids should be stripped of their medals. And States that do not run clean elections should be stripped of their electors.
This fraud was systemic; it was repeated; it was the same system; and, I dare say, it was effective. We saw circumstances where, when Democrat operatives couldn’t get the outcomes they wanted in State legislatures, when they couldn’t get the job done there, they went and pressured and litigated and usurped the Constitution with extra-constitutional action of some officials in some States. They fraudulently laundered ballots, votes, voter registration forms, and then they limited review.
In 2016, Democrats found out that they couldn’t beat Donald Trump at the ballot box with voters who actually show up, so they turned to impeachment and the witness box. And when that failed, they ran to the mailbox, where this election saw an unprecedented amount of votes that could not be authenticated with true ID, with true signature match, and with true confidence for the American people.
Our Article III courts have failed by not holding evidentiary hearings to weigh the evidence. We should not join in that failure. We should vindicate the rights of States. We should vindicate the subpoenas in Arizona that have been issued to get a hold of these voting machines, and we should reject these electors.