Former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida drew strong praise when he confronted Joe Biden’s then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at a contentious 2024 House Armed Services Committee hearing. The purpose of the February 29th hearing was to address Austin’s unexplained, unannounced absence, but became much more pointed when Gaetz cited a powerful biblical passage to confront Austin’s own hypocrisy over the seeking of grace.
“As Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin begs Congress for grace and forgiveness after his unauthorized absence was exposed earlier this year, he REFUSED to give that same grace to the 8,600 service members he kicked out due to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate!” Gaetz wrote to X when sharing the recorded exchange.
“You didn’t tell the President that you had cancer,” Gaetz said to the former Defense Secretary last winter, “that you were being treated for cancer, or that the treatment for that cancer had gone wrong, because you saw it as personal and medical, and I think a lot of us have empathy for you in that regard. But now that you see how personal medical decisions are, will you call for…restoration of full rank and back pay for the 8600 service members who were Vax mandated out of the military?”
“So you come here seeking some grace and some forgiveness. And I want you to know that one of the service members who you Vax mandated, out of the military, sent me the parable of the unforgiving debtor. And it’s in the book of Matthew. It’s verses 21 to 35 the man fell down before his king and begged him, please be patient with me, and I will pay all the debt. Then his master, filled with pity for him, released him and forgave him of his debt,” the former Florida representative read of the parable.
“But when the man left the king,” continued the verses, “he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few $1,000 he grabbed him by the throat and demanded payment. His fellow servant sat down and begged him for a little more time, be patient with me and I will pay it. He pleaded, but his creditor would not wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened, and the king called the man who had been forgiven and said, you evil servant, I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me, shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I have mercy on you? Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.”
Gaetz then brought the message home. “Mr. Secretary, you come to us seeking forgiveness, but you offer none. And it seems as though the pattern is repeated. You make a mistake, like on the VAX mandate and here, regarding your notification, then you get busted. President Biden had to sign something into law, reversing your Vax mandate. You got busted here, not because you came forward, but because we learned of this through other means. And then after you get busted making a mistake, you know you want you want that benefit, but you don’t want to extend it to others. This isn’t swift or clear. You’re not meeting your own standards that you set for yourself…but don’t you see the hypocrisy in it? Because you screwed up, we fix your screw up, and now you want grace, but these people who sought religious exemptions, they got no such grace.”
Featured image: Screen shot from embedded video