'I think we're going to have a red wave': Matt Gaetz calls for new GOP approach at Republican club meeting

MIRAMAR BEACH — Four days after opening a campaign office in Fort Walton Beach as he seeks a fourth term in Congress, incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz spoke to a supportive crowd at Tuesday's meeting of the South Walton Republican Club.

Gaetz delighted a crowd of about 80 people with his prediction of a Republican resurgence in balloting this year.

"I think we're going to have a red wave," he said.

The crowd was similarly enthused, erupting into applause and shouts as Gaetz told them he believes that former President Donald Trump will run again for president. Gaetz also said he believes that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, already seen as a potential 2024 contender for the presidency, "will be president one day."

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But Gaetz also said that any Republican congressional gains in the upcoming election — new redistricting maps could give Florida two or three more Republican representatives in Congress, he speculated — may not be enough to counter the work of Democratic President Joe Biden and his administration.

Gaetz himself is entering a field of candidates that currently includes three Democrats and three other Republican candidates.

"I don't believe we could go into this thinking we could roll Biden," Gaetz said. "I also don't think we could go into this thinking we can work with Biden. That's why I think we should go into it to investigate Biden."

Gaetz also used his presentation to decry what he called a corrupt system in Congress dominated by seniority and obeisance to lobbyists, and to advocate a Republican move toward a different style of leadership.

In making that point, Gaetz — himself a self-styled "firebrand" — referenced two similarly styled members of Congress who also have operated on the fringes of the traditional Republican party.

"If we got more young, innovative, dynamic people like Lauren Boebert of Colorado, like Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, and we gave those folks an opportunity to have leadership and to define the agenda," Gaetz said, "then our agenda would be more attractive to people because it would have an energy and a vibrance that too often, the leaders, who have already sold themselves to the lobby corps to get to leadership, could never do."

Just recently, Boebert heckled Biden during his State of the Union address with a comment regarding 13 American troops killed as the United States left Afghanistan after 20 years of military presence in that country.

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And just a few days ago, Cawthorn mis-stepped with comments disparaging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, now leading his country in the face of a Russian invasion. Cawthorn later backed away from his comments.

"We will not make these changes immediately," Gaetz said of his approach toward changing the Republican presence in Congress, "but I'm actually not hopeless that we can make them. ... Maybe, if we just get a few more, like Marjorie (Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene), like Madison, like Lauren, like I'm trying to do, if that can grow from four to 10, to 12, to 20, to 30, I do believe that we can persuade otherwise good people who've gotten elected to Congress .. to do the right thing and to actually fight for the country."

Gaetz's idea for moving more dynamic Republicans into leadership positions — in a brief interview after his presentation, he called it "an expeditionary strategy" — found support Tuesday. Wes Wyrick, a veteran, decried the "groupthink" of Congress, adding that new ideas have "got to come from the outside."

On a practical level, Wyrick added, "I'd rather have mean tweets and $2 gas than $5 gas."

Gaetz used much of his 30-minute speech, followed by a half-hour of responding to questions, to sound familiar red-meat conservative themes to his audience, while not sparing his GOP colleagues.

"We are currently on a path of managed decline," Gaetz said, "and there are far too many Republicans that are willing to just rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic as our country has open borders, as they try to disarm law-abiding Americans, as they devalue our dollar and cripple, particularly, working people, with inflation."

In response to that, Gaetz said Republicans should use congressional committees as oversight committees addressing issues in the Biden administration.

"We have to use every committee in the Congress, not as an opportunity to hold hands with the Democrats, pass an infrastructure bill, rename some post offices, announce some Mother's Day resolutions. No, we have to use every committee in the Congress as an oversight committee," Gaetz said. "We have to look into the corrupt actions of this administration that are directly tied to the pain that our people are feeling."

As an example, Gaetz said committees dealing with education should move away from having federal involvement in education, and "should be looking into every circumstance where they're trying to drive critical race theory into the minds of our students, and we should vanquish that from our country."

Gaetz also referenced his own service on the House Armed Services Committee, saying, "It seems like every day, the 'woke' generals at DoD (the Department of Defense) want us to believe that the problem in our military is white supremacy or domestic extremism. That's nonsense. We know these people. They're our neighbors."

More coverage: Gaetz calls Gulf Test Range 'my top legislative priority'

With regard to other military issues in his district where military personnel and military installations are significant parts of his constituency, Gaetz took time to reiterate his longstanding support for the Eglin Gulf Test and Training Range, a 120,000-square-mile section of the eastern Gulf of Mexico overseen by Eglin Air Force Base where a wide array of munitions testing and military training take place.

Gaetz said that ensuring the future of the range "means that we have to stand against the risks of offshore oil drilling. I can't believe I have to continue to say this in Washington, but it's a terrible idea to shoot experimental missiles over oil rigs."

A moratorium on oil exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, in an executive order from Trump, is set to remain in effect through most of 2030.

In other comments on the test range, Gaetz said his recent vote against a bill to halt American imports of Russian oil in light of the situation in Ukraine was made amid concerns that it would open the eastern Gulf to oil and gas exploration.

"I thought it would be pretty dumb to go vote for a bill to combat Russia that would result in us being diminished in our capability to develop the weapons systems that we will need to ultimately deter Russia ... ," he said.

In a brief interview following his speech, Gaetz said he doesn't expect an ongoing Department of Justice investigation for possible sex trafficking and allegedly engaging in sex with a 17-year-old girl to hurt his electoral chances.

"It didn't seem to affect this crowd too much," he said.

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz speaks at South Walton Republican Club meeting