Gaetz blasts Cuomo at CPAC: Establishment considers him 'a cross between King David and Tom Brady'

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Gaetz slams Cuomo, GOP establishment at CPAC

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., delivers rousing speech against political critics

In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Friday, one of the state's most prominent congressmen, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Pensacola slammed the Republican establishment and the apparent alliance between Big Tech, the mainstream media and major Democrats.

Gaetz slammed what he called "lockdown governors" in Democrat-run states who, in contrast to the Sunshine State, continue to keep their individuals and businesses under strict social and economic restrictions.

"How about freedom for young and healthy people," he said at the conference, which is streaming live on Fox Nation. "How about we ditch the lockdown governors -- Cuomo, Newsom and Murphy, and never ditch the American way of life and the American spirit."

"When big government fuses with Big Tech, government will become more efficient at acquiring and centralizing power."

During his speech, he pointed to the press's and Big Tech's glowing treatment of New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo throughout most of the coronavirus pandemic. Most recently, Cuomo has received rare criticism from otherwise friendly quarters amid allegations of sexual harassment and news reports about the nursing home scandal.

"Now, the fake news media and their allies in Silicon Valley made Governor Cuomo out to be some iconic cross between King David and Tom Brady -- What a big lie that turned out to be," Gaetz remarked.

Gaetz added that former aides to the three-term governor claimed he suggested other staffers engage in "strip poker".

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"Meanwhile, they were 'stripping' Granny out of the COVID ward at the hospital and tossing her in the nursing home in just enough time to infect everybody and then go back to the hospital so that deaths could be recategorized for politics."

In contrast, Gaetz said the media likes to focus on foibles of conservatives rather than liberals in that regard, pointing to the wall-to-wall coverage of Sen. Ted Cruz's, R-Texas, brief trip to Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico.

"It was awful the way the media treated Ted Cruz -- they were more worried about Ted Cruz going to Mexico to spend his own money than the caravans coming from Mexico to spend ours."

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Shifting to battling the centrist and GOP establishment in America, Gaetz called for a "renewed patriotic nationalism" in the U.S., and slammed anti-Trump Republicans like Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.

He riffed on his own brief trip to the Cowboy State's capital of Cheyenne, where he gathered a pro-Trump crowd and railed against the daughter of the former vice president and senator.

"If Liz Cheney were on this stage today, she'd get booed off of it," he said. "I haven't gotten this much of a warm welcome since I went to Wyoming."

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"We proudly represent the pro-Trump America First wing of the conservative movement -- we're not really a wing, we're the whole body, we're the main atraction in the greatest show on Earth."

"While the establishment owns the think tanks, we're the ones doing all the thinking in the conservative movement."