Matt Gaetz Commits Grave Sin of Misquoting Austin Powers Film in Committee Hearing

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) took a detour during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday to quote Austin Powers, but he botched it.

The focus of the hearing was “Free Speech on College Campuses,” with much of it centering on speech about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

“I want Israel to win and Hamas to lose,” Gaetz told the committee. “But this is not an Armed Services Committee hearing about the military. It’s a Judiciary hearing about speech.”

The Florida lawmaker then wound up to deliver a line from Austin Powers in Goldmember, but he blew it on two fronts:

And in that vein, I am reminded of the great words of the philosopher Austin Powers, who said, “There’s only two things I can’t stand. People who are intolerant of other people. And the Dutch.”

Unfortunately for Gaetz, the line he tried to deliver was said by Austin’s father, Nigel Powers, played by Michael Caine. He also slightly muffed the quote.

“There are only two things I can’t stand in this world,” he says in the film. “People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures. And the Dutch!”

Gaetz went on to say that there is “tension” between what the witnesses were saying about speech on campus.

“We have people saying, ‘We have speech that we would like to have vindicated and we are under this tremendous pressure from these entities that offer a heckler’s veto of what we’re trying to get out.'” the congressman said. “And then on the other side of the table, you have people saying, ‘Well, there’s speech we really don’t like that’s anti-Semitic and problematic, and we gotta figure out ways to root it out.’

“There is an inherent tension in having that discussion on those terms.”

Watch above via the House Judiciary Committee.