- yesterday
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) speaks at Turning Point USA's "Student Action Summit" in Tampa, Florida.
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00:00Good afternoon Tampa. For those of you who might not know who I am, my name is
00:07Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna and I have the joy, thank you, I have the joy
00:11and privilege of representing Florida's 13th congressional district in Pinellas
00:16County. Thank you, thank you. But you know, standing here today when I initially
00:24started out, I never envisioned that I would have a career in politics. I did
00:29not come from a particularly political family. I was born to a very young single
00:33mom. My dad was in and out of jail. By the time I had been maybe around 10 years old
00:39I'd walked into an armed robbery. I had a cousin that was murdered. I'd attended
00:43multiple high schools, one of which there was a gang shooting on campus. And for
00:47all argument sakes, according to statistics, I probably should have been a high school
00:50dropout, teen mom and on drugs. But at 19 I joined the military, which truly
00:59was the best decision of my life. It's where I met my husband Andy and it's
01:03where I was, thank you, and it's where I was able to put myself through college.
01:07Eventually I ended up taking the MCAT twice and had this goal and objective of
01:11becoming a military physician. But it was during my gap year when I was
01:16volunteering as a counter-trafficking activist that I really had my turning
01:20point moment. You see, prior to 2016, then-candidate Trump was talking about the
01:24correlation with an open border in human trafficking. And I think most people will
01:29agree that open borders hurts people on both sides. Here I was, a female Hispanic
01:34veteran, granddaughter of immigrants, and I argued that it wasn't racist or
01:39xenophobic to want border security. Yet I was called a race traitor. They would
01:44actually always make fun of me and call me a coconut. It means that you're brown on
01:47the outside or white on the inside. Of which I would always respond, well I'm more like a
01:51vanilla wafer, and that seemed to really tick them off. But in my opinion, if you're
01:58given a position of power or a platform, and you don't speak out of against
02:03injustices, you're just as complicit as the injustice that occurred.
02:14And I noticed something. I saw that the media was lying. I kept seeing these images
02:19of women and children, yet the very same media outlets weren't talking about the
02:23rape, the trafficking, whether it was labor or for sexual purposes that was taking place.
02:27I made a video like any good millennial will do, and it went pretty viral, talking
02:33about why I believed in border security and why I supported President Trump. And
02:37eventually I was invited to an event called the Young Women's Leadership Summit,
02:41which, if you've been there today, shout out to all the women in the audience.
02:49It was at that event I realized I wasn't the only one. And shortly thereafter, I kid you
02:54not, one day before I was supposed to go to medical school, Charlie Kirk calls me and
02:58says, Hi, Ana, my name is Charlie Kirk, and I'd like to offer you the job as a National
03:02Hispanic Outreach Director for Turning Point USA. So I literally, thank you.
03:07I had 24 hours to decide what I was going to do. Was I going to go down one path, which
03:13was medicine, or was I going to go down a very different path that seemed like I was
03:18being pushed in the direction of politics? And after thinking about it and talking to
03:22one of my mentors, I realized that I could help people in a way that I probably could
03:26have never dreamed of through medicine, and that was through legislation. The impact and
03:29the reach I would be able to have, I could actually potentially bring the change and be
03:34the change that I wanted to see happen in this country. So in 2020, I decided to run
03:38for office. And in 2020, I was not successful. But when you fail, you try, try again, and you
03:44will be successful. I promise you that. Everyone remembers that BLM was a summer of love. And
03:49I promise you, I'm not just telling you this to bore you. I'm not just telling you this to
03:52make you feel bad about the life and circumstances which I was born into. But this all correlates,
03:57because when you're in your biggest struggles, I do believe it's God putting you there,
04:01preparing you for something. In 2022, despite being outspent $12 million to one, having my
04:09own party back a pedophile defense attorney against me, I won my election.
04:21And it was a massive learning curve. You would think that when you go to Congress that they
04:25send you there and they want to teach you how to legislate and they want to teach you how
04:28to put forward and do the right thing. But they don't. They want you to go up there,
04:31go to the lobbyist parties. They want to indict you. But they don't actually want you to advocate
04:35and do what you promise to do on the campaign trail. So I read the rule manual. It's crazy
04:40what happens when you read books. Read it multiple times, in fact. And shortly after getting elected,
04:46I had this egregious hit piece come out from the Washington Post. Just real quick,
04:50how do we feel about the Washington Post?
04:52Good!
04:52I now told you a little bit earlier about the background in which I came from. And this
04:58hit piece tried to discredit everything about my life. They tried to say that I was a registered
05:04Democrat in the state of Washington, of which they had to retract because that was provably false.
05:09They actually were able to access my military records as a sitting member of Congress,
05:14contact my old supervisors trying to dig up dirt on me. They reached out to my mom and asked for
05:20proof of death that my grandmother passed away HIV positive.
05:25They even went as far as saying that I made up my father's incarceration record.
05:29Little did they know that I had receipts for all of that. But they didn't want to print the truth
05:33because people like me on the left, we're not supposed to exist. We're supposed to be Democrats.
05:38We're supposed to be leftists. And we're supposed to embrace, especially if you're Hispanic,
05:42we are supposed to embrace open borders. They want us to pretend that all Hispanics are legal
05:47and say nothing about labor trafficking or child trafficking affecting our communities.
05:52And I'm not going to be silent on that matter. Had that article not come out, had I not have
05:57the facts to back me, Time Magazine would never investigate it. And even though their hit piece
06:01was meant to destroy me, it actually ended up empowering me. In fact, Time Magazine named me
06:06as the next 100 most influential people in the world next to J.D. Vance.
06:16In that same congressional cycle, so in the 118th Congress, I was the member of Congress
06:21that censored Adam Schiff for his hoax in the Russia collusion and going after President Donald Trump.
06:26And I was also the member that led the fight against Merrick Garland, a corrupt attorney general
06:35who protected Joe Biden in his cognitive decline. And four Republicans voted against holding Merrick
06:41Garland in inherent contempt. It just goes to prove the corruption that we have within our own party
06:45that needs to be flushed.
06:47Drain the swamp, indeed, and the swamp is real. I promise you that.
06:55In 2024, because of my work and efforts in the previous Congress, I was charged with a task force
07:00to investigate some of the most grisly crimes in U.S. history, starting out with the assassination
07:04of John F. Kennedy. What I can tell you, and I would say that this model of transparency
07:10in the declassification of the JFK records is literally what they should be doing with Jeffrey Epstein.
07:15The administration released tens of thousands of documents, and I will say credit due where it's
07:25deserved. The CIA Director Radcliffe was the only CIA Director in U.S. history who was able to release
07:31something called the Joe Needs Files. What this file proved, and it had been hidden for over 60 years,
07:37was without a doubt, and this is not my analysis, this is not my opinion, this is based on evidence
07:42that we have backings on. Without a doubt, the CIA engaged in a cover-up of the JFK assassination.
07:49The CIA lied to Congress. Joe Needs, who was a CIA operative, did indeed have contact and was
07:56observing Lee Harvey Oswald, who, in my opinion, was a patsy in cover for multiple shooters in the
08:02assassination of John F. Kennedy.
08:10If you would have said that last year or a couple years ago, they would have called you conspiracy theorists.
08:16Yet every single person in this room knows conspiracy theory is only a matter of time before it's proven correct.
08:21See, for most members of Congress, their job is just to vote. But for me, it's far much more than that.
08:32It is to weed out the systemic corruption infecting the cancer on this country. And the only way that
08:39you can do it, you don't make peace with evil, you don't make peace with corruption, you destroy it.
08:43Which brings me to my next thing. These L.A. riots, these anti-ice riots. When I saw those,
08:56I looked at this from an activist perspective. Who's funding these riots? Where are they coming from?
09:03Right? Follow the money trail. Now, credit due where it's deserved, because I don't believe that
09:09this woman deserves enough credit. But there are two people that actually helped flush out
09:13these connections on the financial tries. The first one is an individual by the name of Data Republican.
09:18Her name's Jennica on X. And the other person who I think probably might be here today is Laura Loomer.
09:28Now, I want to tell you what I learned. And when we were able to discover some of the work of these
09:32citizen journalists, we were able to actually send out letters requesting testimony, and I'll get to that
09:38in a second, to an individual by the name of Neville Singham. Now, when you look at Neville Singham's
09:43background, he's a billionaire Marxist who was made a billionaire by taking money from the
09:47Communist Chinese Party. The money then transferred from the CCP to an organization called the Party
09:53for Socialism and Liberation, of which then turned around and organized these anti-ice riots.
09:59But why all of a sudden Mexican flags? Do you guys remember the summer of love and these mostly
10:03peaceful riots? They were BLM flags. In fact, the Democrat Party used a dead black man by the name of
10:09George Floyd to fundraise for their 2020 election, and no one wants to talk about that.
10:15The main difference between that and then is nothing, just a different flag. And in fact,
10:20they're doing the same thing. They're using the guise of targeting people based on race,
10:24social economic class, changing the flags, fundraising off of it, and using it for political
10:30talking points. It's not really about immigrants. It's not really about protecting innocent people.
10:36It's not about women and children. And as you saw on some of these farm raids that just took place
10:42yesterday in California, our own government was able to free multiple children that were being
10:48hired to work on these, not even hired, they were being forced to work on these farms. And I think
10:54everyone in this room will agree that child labor and exploitation is unacceptable in a free country.
10:59Now, what I will say is there's a really good movie. Who's seen the movie Kingdom of Heaven?
11:12Okay, if you guys haven't seen that movie, you really need to watch it. It's a great movie.
11:16But there's a quote in that movie, and it really resonates with me. It says,
11:19your soul is yours keeping alone. Even those who presume to play you be kings or men of power,
11:26when you stand before God, you cannot say, but I was told by others to do thus, for their virtue was
11:32not convenient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that. It means that every single person
11:38here has a choice to do the right thing. It doesn't matter what position you're at, but if you're in a
11:44position of power and you choose to not do the right thing, watch out. See, this party is no longer
11:50our grandfather's GOP. We've changed, and I think that that's evident. We are the People's Party.
11:59We value truth and understand that only through transparency can that be accomplished through
12:04trust. We defend the Second Amendment. We understand that children are a blessing and
12:10then the backbone of a strong country is the nuclear family. We understand that forever wars only hurt us
12:18and that it is only truly accomplished with peace through strength. We embrace the famous words
12:24of one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.
12:34It is your responsibility and obligation to stay in the fight, to rise to the occasion and be our next
12:40generation of leaders and fighters. Thank you. I'm not the only one that needs you.
12:48This country needs you. And I can tell you that, based on what I've seen in Washington, D.C.,
12:52you can — I can promise you I'm not going to be there in the next 20 years. I don't want to.
12:56It's corrupt. And we need your help to truly drain the swamp.
12:59Together, we will keep this country great. Turning Points just informed me, too, that I have a couple
13:13minutes to take some questions from the crowd, so I'm going to be opening it up to you guys in a minute.
13:18But I do want to say this. I didn't do this job because it was convenient. In fact, it's quite the
13:24opposite. It's incredibly hard. It's a big sacrifice for the family. But I'm doing it because it's the right
13:28thing to do. Because right now, we need young leaders who will speak the truth, sometimes calling
13:34out our own party. If we don't have your voice, we will lose this country. And you're seeing that with
13:38some of the elections taking place around this country. Now, everyone says every election is
13:44truly important. But when you see them electing open communists, when you see money coming in from
13:48the Communist Chinese Party, when you see systemic government corruption, I'm telling you right now,
13:54we need your voice to fight it. God bless all of you. Thank you so much for being here today.
13:59God bless the state of Florida and God bless this American, this great American country.
14:07Now, if you guys can please line up here, I'll take some questions from the audience.
14:12Right up here, find a microphone and we'll go from there.
14:14Hi. I really respect all of the work that you've done on the pro-life movement and speaking out
14:25against abortion and all of the things that, you know, Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry
14:30is doing against unborn life. I would love for you to speak a bit about the IVF industry and then what
14:37that also does for unborn life and what we need to be concerned about with in vitro fertilization.
14:45I actually say, I think that I hold the same position that the president does and that IVF
14:50can be done in a responsible fashion. What I will tell you is that I think the conversation surrounding
14:55that though right now is very convoluted. In my experience and from what I've heard, when people
15:01are being impacted by fertility issues and this goes into what's in our food product, what people have
15:07been exposed through through the medical industry and why there's such a big population decline right
15:11now. I've actually been one of the few Republicans to co-sponsor legislation on that exact topic.
15:18And so I think the whole idea that there is an an IVF industrial complex does does prevent, I guess,
15:28the discussion on if you have a one-to-one embryo transfer and you respect it in that sense,
15:33how much of a beautiful thing it can be for actually families that struggle with infertility.
15:38But again, it takes a responsible conversation and I think that we have to not run from those
15:42conversations but have them face to face.
15:46And then on your right, this will be the last question.
15:49Hi, my name is Mayan and I was wondering if you thought that we would ever have a female president
15:56as a female congresswoman. Yeah, I think that it's going to probably happen in my lifetime but I
16:03think that when someone's running for president, they should not run on the fact that they're just
16:06a woman. I think that qualifications get us there. But on that same topic, I do think that there's going
16:16to be many Democrat females running for president in the next election cycle and I think that they're
16:20going to run on a few things. I think that they're going to run on immigration. They're going to run on the
16:24images of deportations and so it's going to take everyone, whether or not you're a man or a woman,
16:30taking a stand against them and their propaganda machine. I want to take a few more questions
16:34though. There was a lot of young kids lined up so if that's okay with you guys, if you guys can just
16:38some of the kids that came back over here. Thank you.
16:43Spots on you.
16:58Wait one second so there's a mic so they can hear.
17:02We'll take five, so rock, paper, scissors.
17:06Congresswoman Luna, I have a lot of respect for you as a congresswoman because you
17:09sponsor legislation that would give child abusers the death penalty. That's a big reason why I
17:14respect you. I have a good question. What type of work have you done with the Trump administration
17:18to crack down on child abusers, especially right in the southern border and what more is there
17:22to be done? I'm really glad that you asked this question. So what you're not noticing in the
17:27press and the media, any mainstream outlet aside from I think Fox News and then of course some of
17:31the independent networks, is this administration has done an incredibly amazing thing in deporting
17:36actual rapists, child exploiters, all of it. In fact, just today was announced that they actually
17:42found 10,000 of the over 300,000 missing children under the Biden administration.
17:52Now, it's not up to the White House though for the policy changes actually have to come from
17:58Congress and so I'm going to call out my own party. Why have people not gone on board to legislation to
18:03increase the mandatory minimums for child rapists and pedophiles in this country?
18:09Should it not be the platform of the pro-family party and the GOP to do that? So yes, we absolutely
18:14have to get aggressive, but there's been a lot of lethargy and frankly, people don't want to take
18:18tough votes, but in my opinion, pedophiles deserve the death penalty. There's no rehabilitating a predator.
18:23Congresswoman Luna, thank you for all the work you've done on releasing the JFK files and trying
18:36to get the Epstein files released. A good friend of yours, Steve Bannon, who I'm also a huge fan of,
18:42did an interview with Jeffrey Epstein in 2019 and he recorded almost 15 hours of footage interviewing
18:48Jeffrey Epstein. There has never been an interview with Jeffrey Epstein publicly released except some
18:54of the depositions and whatnot. Would you ask Steve Bannon to release this footage now because I think
18:59it's very relevant and might give us some insight into what Jeffrey Epstein's motivations are and whatnot?
19:06Well, I think you just asked him for us, right? That's actually the first time I'm hearing of that,
19:12but yeah, I'd be very interested in seeing that footage and I think the American people would too.
19:18Moving into the 2026 midterms, how do we get over the trend that the party in the White House loses
19:28seats in Congress and just how do we move forward? Well, according to the polling I'm seeing,
19:34we're not losing any seats. I think that that's a historical record will reflect that, but again,
19:45you know, I feel like 10% of us in Congress do 90% of the work. And so it's our whole goal and objective
19:52to push the party into codifying and getting off our bums and actually doing the right thing by maybe
19:56doing our jobs in Washington. And so if you guys can continue to help with that message,
20:00that would be great. Thank you guys. God bless. We'll talk soon.