Bless their hearts. All that is MAGA continues to deal with President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General and no discernible progress is being made in any direction. Give Trump his due, this pick was surely meant to suck every oxygen atom up out of the media ether and he managed to yet again outdo himself. With breathless ease, Trump found the single most improbable, problematic, and outrageous pick such that it would put his real followers to the test. Those followers who happen to inhabit “Fox and Friends” sure had a tough time even discussing the matter on Thursday morning.
As Mediaite reports, Brian Kilmeade started the discussion by advising Gaetz to get out in front of this, tell everyone that he’s turned a new page. The parties and drugs were a problem for “old Matt” and he’s now the more mature… As you read Kilmeade’s advice on how to mature out of sex-trafficking minors, remember that Bill Clinton lost two Attorney General nominations due to employing undocumented nannies. Gaetz has issues with girls who were not even old enough to be nannies. Now hear Kilmeade make his case:
“If they can feel as though they can live with, the … whatever their ethics revelations come out, and he gets in front of people, he is such a strong communicator. And if he could tone it down and say, that’s the old me, I was a firebrand in the house. But the way I’m going to approach the Department of Justice is this. It might make people pause and say, maybe people can have a different approach for a different job.”
Shameless. Kilmeade should be forced to eat that quote for a lifetime. Leave it to a dad of a 17 year old girl to say this – being a House firebrand is fine. The problem here is preying on girls beyond anything tolerable from an adult man or Congressman, never mind Attorney General. Even though Kilmeade has long been the “lesser” on the morning couch, he knows better than this.
Speaking of which, we move to Steve Doocy who is generally more reliable as a voice of reason. Doocy said:
“The Trump transition team — you look at the big screen — there isn’t, you know, there isn’t the kind of headlines around any of those that you see around Matt Gaetz and the constant drip, drip, drip every day of some new revelation. The Trump team’s got to be thinking, you know, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. We don’t want to be spinning our wheels.”
I guess that is as close as we’re going to get to hearing that this was a massive mistake, “this wasn’t such a good idea.” But that brings up another point. Where is the loyalty? We know that Donald Trump doesn’t want to reverse himself and withdraw the nomination. So how is it that someone hasn’t gone to Gaetz and said “Sorry, pal. It is your turn to fall on the sword a bit, buddy. Drop out of the nomination process, tell the boss that you just won’t go forward as it is causing him too many issues.” Why has that not happened? Is Matt Gaetz not loyal enough?
Or is the pick too perfect as is? Is the real agenda to determine how far they can push the nomination process in the Senate? Are they really after a tell as to whether there are loyalty issues in the U.S. Senate? Maybe so. Still, one would think that Gaetz should at least come out with, “I offered to withdraw but… ”
Lawrence Jones thinks that Trump’s motives go deeper:
“I actually think the opposite. [Trump] was aware of this investigation before. And the position of the former president is that there’s a Department of Justice that went after me, and it was unfair, and they didn’t find anything with me. And the same thing with Matt Gaetz. He’s actually doubled down. He wants him to be the person.”
Really stretching the “didn’t find anything with me” thing there. But it is possible that Trump believed he wanted a fellow DOJ traveler in that foxhole. I doubt it. I suspect it is far more likely to be something to test the Senate. We are left to conclude that Trump himself is apparently okay with the fact that Gaetz flew these young girls around with him. It is still stunning that he would invite this kind of political damage this early on. Almost inexplicable.
Kilmeade then rejoined reality on the way out the door:
“Well, the front page in The New York Times says this federal inquiry traced payments from Gaetz to woman. A document prepared by the federal investigators bolsters claims by women who say they were hired for sex. And then they go into a first during The New York Times. So if this happens for the next two months, it might be too much.”
No. It is too much. Again, we’re not talking about putting Matt Gaetz in prison for ten years. If that were the question, there would be far greater need to ensure that a jury went through every allegation and every bit of evidence. One has a right to be free until proven otherwise. One doesn’t have the right to be attorney general. Only a very special few people should ever be considered under the best of circumstances, only the best.
As much as we mock all that is MAGA, there are plenty of very loyal people who could lead the DOJ in Trump’s second term and be well-qualified. Ted Cruz would be a highly qualified attorney general. Josh Hawley. Even Ron DeSantis. There are Trump loyalists who could take the job and do it without fear that the Senate would reject the appointment or that the public might lose confidence in the selection.
It is almost impossible to discern what went through Trump’s mind when he nominated Gaetz. It is almost certain that the pick has now become a test of the U.S. Senate. To the extent that any of this has any usefulness, it is likely that Trump wants to see who in the Senate says what about their advise and consent duties. It is a test.
There are only two other certainties. Matt Gaetz is not qualified to be attorney general – and Donald Trump knows it as well as anyone. He must have another agenda.
God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and @JasonMiciak and on Blue Sky – a better platform, @jasonmiciak.bsky.social
TED FUCKING CRUZ, are you in any way serious, Jason? Josh Hawley? DeSantis? Surely we’re not reduced to accepting that level of scum for AG, just because Gaetz is even scummier.
“Qualified” – Meaning having sufficient credentials/experience. Cruz and Hawley have Harvard/Yale JDs, clerked for SCOTUS justices, Cruz is now a third term sen. and Hawley was Missouri A.G., DeSantis has a Harvard degree and served in the JAG corps.
And as much as I cannot stand any of the three I listed – – as mere examples of people “qualified” (Like Rubio is qualified to be SoS), there is a huge difference between people that I cannot stand like Cruz/Hawley, etc. versus someone like Gaetz and all his issues.
Yes, it is sort of a race to the bottom, but there is still a big difference.
Someone should’ve asked Kilmeade if he’d be comfortable leaving one of his underage daughters alone with Gaetz. Even for just a half-hour. With the daughter having 911 on speed dial. (Given that Kilmeade is 60–according to Wiki–and there’s no information I can find beyond his having 3 kids, including 2 daughters, I find it a bit tough to imagine that his daughters are underage. It’s certainly possible for him to have underage children, provided he didn’t get married until he was over 40 but that seems a bit unlikely.)
🤣🥳 Matt Gaetz has withdrawn his name from AG consideration!!
tRump has a thing for pervs. He surrounds himself with them, so Gaetz was a perfect fit. But good riddance to Matty. Don’t let the door hit ya!