Trump’s Choice of Matt Gaetz Should Surprise No One

Opinion

Trump’s Choice of Matt Gaetz Should Surprise No One

Nov. 13, 2024

A shadowy, black and white photograph of Matt Gaetz, with microphones and cameras in his face.

 

David French

By David French

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/opinion/matt-gaetz-attorney-general-trump.html

Opinion Columnist

 

Throughout the presidential campaign, I noticed that Trump supporters tended to fall into one of two camps. The first camp — core MAGA — heard Donald Trump’s wild rhetoric, including his vows to punish his political enemies, and loved every bit of it. They voted for Trump because they believed he’d do exactly what he said.

 

Then there was a different camp — normie Republican — that had an entirely different view. They did not believe Trump’s words. They rolled their eyes at media alarmism and responded with some version of “stop clutching your pearls. This is just Trump being Trump. He’s far more bark than bite.”

 

But Trump’s selection of Matt Gaetz as his nominee for attorney general, along with his selection of Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, shows that Trump did mean what he said. He is going to govern with a sense of vengeance, and personal loyalty really is the coin of his realm.

 

Gaetz’s nomination is particularly dreadful. He isn’t just the least-qualified attorney general in American history (he barely practiced law before running for elected office and has served mainly as a MAGA gadfly in Congress), he’s also remarkably dishonest and depraved.

 

Gaetz has created immense turmoil in the House. He was primarily responsible for deposing the House speaker Kevin McCarthy in a fit of pique, and he’s so alienated House colleagues that one had to be physically restrained from attacking him on the House floor. He has a reputation as showing colleagues explicit pictures of his sexual partners, and he is under a House ethics investigation into whether he had sex with an underage girl while he was a member of Congress.

 

Gaetz has denied these claims, and the Department of Justice closed its own investigation into sex trafficking and obstruction of justice last year.

 

Gaetz’s nomination is a test for Senate Republicans. Can they summon up the minimum level of decency and moral courage to reject Gaetz? Or will they utterly abdicate their constitutional role of advice and consent in favor of simply consenting even to Trump’s worst whims?

 

No matter what happens next, however, Gaetz’s nomination is reaffirmation that the Donald Trump who tried to overthrow an American election hasn’t matured or evolved or grown. He is who he is, and it should surprise no one that he nominated a vengeful loyalist to lead the most powerful law enforcement agency in the United States.

 

David French is an Opinion columnist, writing about law, culture, religion and armed conflict. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former constitutional litigator. His most recent book is “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” You can follow him on Threads (@davidfrenchjag).