Jay Weber Show transcript 11-22-24
What was that? Eight days?
Matt Gaetz was the attorney general nominee for eight days.
I-do-like being right, but it’s always more fun when I’m proven right after a small flurry of hate on social media from a bunch of people who don’t know what they are talking about...and that was the case this time.
I knew this appointment wasn’t going anywhere, based on the odious and irritable nature of Gaetz himself and how universally hated he was in DC...and due to the criminal allegations, that have been leveled against him for years.
This nomination ended abruptly, midday yesterday, when gates withdrew his nomination with the excuse that he didn’t want to be a distraction:
The problem with Gaetz’s attempt to save face is- this withdrawal came after a day of going around with Jd Vance to meet with republican senators....and being told in those meetings that he didn’t have the support of a good number of them.
Gaetz wants to insist that the senate meetings went well, but clearly, at least a good number of senators told him to his face that they had concerns over him...and/or...flat out.... said they couldn’t’ vote for him.
The withdrawal also came after CNN claims to have informed gates that they were going to run a story on him detailing a -second- allegation of sex with a minor that is detailed in the house ethics report.
So- more dirt was going to come out here, and in the form of a credibly detailed ethics investigation, and, as CNN ‘at least claimed’.... gates resigned 45 minutes later.
They called him for a comment. Said-we are running with this story about the second underaged sex crime that hasn’t been publicly detailed yet-would you like to comment....
And he withdrew 45 minutes later.
That had reporter running to senators on both sides of the aisle to get comments... And virtually everyone agreed: this was the right move by Gaetz.
It sounds like none of the senators were given a heads up before the withdrawal. Trump’s team obviously was, because Trump put out some cursory words about him and thanked him for considering it...
I knew Matt Gaetz was never going to be the attorney general of the united states-just based on what DC insiders have told me about him-and what the beltway insider blogs and trades have had to say about him over the years.
It'd be hard for this guy’s own mother to love him, apparently.
And no, Gaetz isn’t going to get Marco Rubio’s senate seat in Florida. I believe Rick Scott and a few other Trump acolytes immediately floated that idea-
So, I’ll remind you again: that is Gov Ron DeSantis’ appointment to fill- and he has his own group of political patrons who he’s going to want to reward with this senate appointment.
It isn’t Trump’s to fill. It’s -never-going to be Gaetz, based on the simple truth that everyone in Washington is happy to be rid of him.
And it’s likely not going to be Lara Trump-for ‘reason one’: it’s DeSantis’ appointment to make. Not trump’s...and he has his own loyalists to reward.
So-that closes the book on the Gaetz’s nonsense...and faster than I would have predicted. I knew he’d never make it all the way to AG I just didn’t think that trump’s team and gates would be folding this early into the botched call.
It is-absolutely-better than they did, making this a quickly forgotten blip.
The next trump nominee who could be pulled before he ever gets to a hearing is Pete Hegseth. And this news is going to disappoint more listeners than the gates news does.
Fox viewers love Pete Hegseth. He’s served several tours overseas. Is a real patriot. Has done good things for veterans. Etc.
His nomination is getting tripped up by an accusation of sexual assault against him that happened seven years ago. That police quickly cleared him up. But-
But- then he later settled a civil suit brought against him -out of court-with a payoff and a non-disclosure agreement.
Many people will say: that doesn’t sound like the move of an innocent man...but....it.... could sound like the move of a successful man being blackmailed by a woman who wants to ruin him- and trying to make it go away or keep it quiet.
And so-
I’m going into this-an agnostic- on the actual allegation. We just don’t know enough yet.
But this-
Moreso than the gates predatory and criminal behaviors-
This accusation- looks a lot more like the types that we’ve routinely gotten against male politicians and famous people forever: some ‘he said, she said’ situation in which a woman said: he attacked me...
And how do the rest of us really know the truth.
For our purposes-here- related to the question of whether trump will need to withdraw this nomination-
One claim is: trump and his team were PO’d to learn about this hush money payoff-because Hegseth didn’t’ disclose it when they asked him-before he was even nominated- what skeletons do you have in your past that could be used against you?
However, as of yesterday, Hegseth was starting to be shepherds around the senate building by JD Vance....meeting all of the GOP senators...having his initial sit-downs with them-
And it was said to be going well- with most senators -at least initially shrugging off this scandal about the hush money payoff as the sort of routine smear that democrats and their accomplices in the media are going to come up with.
As i said on twitter: don’t kill the messenger: I’m just explaining what’s going on behind the scenes. And I later turn out to be right about this stuff, which, for some reason, seems to anger at least a segment of the audience.
I assume it’s because they -don’t want me to be right about the prediction and/or- they just love to hate the host.
Either way- I’m telling ‘my audience’ what’s going on.
But- how quickly did we learn that -just because trump won in a convincing manner and has a clear mandate from the people- he doesn’t get to be king.
This failure of Gaetz’s nomination is a pretty good example of the senate’s role as a co-equal branch of power.
It also suggests we can start to ignore all this talk of ‘recess appointments’ of controversial nominees and the most important cabinet members.
That isn’t happening’ either. And it’s ’ been settled before thanksgiving. Donald trump-cannot and will not- get everything he wants just because he won the election.
No past president has. And he won’t either.
photo credit: Getty Images
audio version of the segment here > Gaetz backs out