Just as the dust started to settle on Donald Trump’s surprise nomination of former Fox News host Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, the president-elect sent shockwaves through Washington, D.C., and beyond with his selection of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as attorney general.
Gaetz, who was first elected to Congress in 2016 and has been a staunch supporter of Trump, promptly resigned from his seat, but it remains to be seen whether he will be able to garner enough support to make it through the Senate confirmation process.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by the hosts of Ruthless – Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook – to discuss the controversial pick and the pros and cons of such a selection.
Nominating Matt Gaetz
A Florida native, Gaetz has a J.D. from William & Mary Law School and worked in private practice before running for office. He was elected to the Florida state house of representatives in 2010 and then successfully ran for U.S. Congress in 2016.
The 42 year old has proven to be an effective cross-examiner during his time on Capitol Hill as a member of the House Judiciary Committee and he is perhaps best known for leading the ouster of former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy last year.
In a statement announcing his pick on Wednesday, Trump said Gaetz would root out “systemic corruption” at the Department of Justice and return the DOJ “to its true mission of fighting crime and upholding our democracy and constitution.”
He also credited the former congressman with playing a “a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization.” Ultimately, Trump said “he is a Champion for the Constitution and the Rule of Law.”
Gaetz’s resignation on Wednesday came before a Friday vote on whether to release what is reportedly a “highly damaging” House Ethics Committee report related to allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and more against him. The House investigation dates back to April 2021 and was born out of a sex trafficking investigation involving underage girls by the Department of Justice that ended with no federal charges being filed against him. He has denied all of the allegations.
The attorney general position requires Senate confirmation, and there has already been some skepticism on the GOP side from the likes of Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.
The Case for Gaetz
As Megyn explained, Gaetz is a “controversial” pick for a number of reasons. “He is definitely a professional sh-t-stirer. He is fiercely loyal to Donald Trump. He actually is a very effective cross examiner… when he is going after somebody at these hearings,” she noted. “But he is also immersed in controversy.”
Comfortably Smug said Trump came away from last Tuesday’s election with “an absolute mandate,” which, in his view, “is why I think every one of these senators should be on board with” the pick. Trump will only have four years in the White House because of term limits, but Smug said the period to enact serious change is even shorter than that.
“It is probably the first 100 days where you can really move the ball before you start getting all the opposing forces organized and trying to stop Trump’s agenda,” he explained. “Which is why I think Matt Gaetz would be the perfect person you want in place… We don’t need to send the same old, same old message. We need to send the message that: Time is up. There is a new sheriff in town.”
Megyn, much to her own surprise, found herself agreeing with Smug given all that has transpired in the last eight years. “If you are Donald Trump and your chosen Attorney General [Jeff Sessions] has turned you over to Robert Mueller who then ruined your first term as president with a bunch of bullsh-t, and then you leave office and the next guy’s Attorney General [Merrick Garland] is behind not one but two criminal prosecutions of you and his DOJ is cooperating with not one but two state prosecutions of you in a bridge that has never been crossed in our 250-year history as a nation, then I too might prize loyalty to me above all other qualities and go with a guy like Matt Gaetz,” she admitted. “Who can blame Trump for trying to pick the most loyal soldier he can find for this position?”
As for the criticism that Gaetz is too partisan for the role, Megyn said the DOJ was politicized a long time ago. “[Barack Obama’s AG] Eric Holder was a partisan hack loser and so is Merrick Garland,” she added. “At this point, get the fighter in there. The gloves are off because you took them off. Now Trump has brought in his own guy with the brass knuckles.”
The Case Against Gaetz
But some of the same reasoning that works in Gaetz’s favor also works against him. “He has dedicated the entirety of his congressional career to creating enemies… mostly within his own party. He has just not played by anybody’s rules, which, I imagine, probably makes him pretty popular amongst the American people, certainly outside the beltway,” Holmes explained. “The problem is, at some point, you have to figure out how to get 51 votes to get confirmed as attorney general.”
While he said everyone expected Trump’s AG pick to “be the most controversial of them all” and the “most difficult” to confirm, the president-elect threw an additional curveball by picking a firebrand like Gaetz. And Holmes said his main concern is, “from a Trump standpoint, how much political capital do you use on this stuff?” because his time in the Oval Office is short and “political capital is at its highest when you win in an election… in the fashion that he did.”
As Holmes explained, there is a six- to eight-month window to get things done on Capitol Hill and “you begin to drain political capital with each thing that you do that becomes controversial.” Duncan agreed. “You don’t want to waste political capital on things that aren’t going to happen,” he concluded. “I just don’t want to waste any time and that is the thing that makes me squeamish about trying to get a Gaetz through.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Ruthless by tuning in to episode 944 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.