Former President Trump shocked and appalled some Republican lawmakers on Wednesday by announcing plans to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for attorney general.
Why it matters: Republican reaction to even Trump’s most controversial nominations has been muted so far, but placing the scandal-prone right-winger in the nation’s highest law enforcement role is a step too far for many.
“We wanted him out of the House … this isn’t what we were thinking,” quipped one House Republican, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about Trump’s decision.
What we’re hearing: Trump’s announcement was met with audible gasps by House Republicans during a conference meeting on Wednesday afternoon, multiple sources in the room told Axios.
One House Republican in the meeting described the conference’s response as “stunned and disgusted.”
What they’re saying: “Gaetz has a better shot at having dinner with Queen Elizabeth II than being confirmed by the senate,” said Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), referring to the British monarch who died in 2022.
Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.), noting that Gaetz is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, said he would be “a compromised AG” and that “there are better choices.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she was “shocked” by the pick: “This shows why the advice and consent process is so important and I’m sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing.”
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said Gaetz has “got his work really cut out for him” to get confirmed.
In tatters?
Mate up until I saw the election results, I associated myself with moderate conservatives. After the election, I’m trying to reconcile with the fact that my county, my state, and my government elected Trump again.
Like, the part of me that wants to claim conservative fully supports your right to vote whoever you think is right.
But we voted him out in 2020?
Like how do you vote for someone who incited an insurrection?
How do you vote for someone who nominated a judge to the Supreme Court and then tried to waive the background check? Pick someone else on the shortlist or let the process prove him innocent.
How do you vote for someone who nominated a judge wjth so little federal court experience to the Supreme Court?
How do you vote for someone who nominated someone who nominated Aileen Cannon? She has made a mockery of the legal system.
How do you nominate someone with so many scandals you can’t even remember all of them? And is guilty of at least some of those through a court of law?
How do you vote for someone with which there is picture proof of him being friendly on multiple occasions with a pedophile/sex trafficker?
And yes, I’ve never been a CHRISTIAN conservative because I’m not Christian. But what the fuck are they trying to conserve? Off the top of my head, he is trying to topple the rule of law, precedence, trying to bypass the senate confirmation process, already ignored the norm by not welcoming Biden in 2020? He tried to dismantle the post office ffs.
His choices directly led to Dobbs. If you are against abortion, don’t get one. It was that fucking simple. Now, I have others beliefs hoisted upon me. What happened to separation of church and state? What happened to the American value of freedom of religion?
Did they not take the same civics class I took in high school? Do they not have brains? Like what the fuck is going on here that I don’t understand. 47 already showed us what kind of disaster he was as 45. Does nobody remember how he handled COVID?
Like how can I be an independent conservative when so many of my “fellow” conservatives voted for the antithesis of the status quo?
Yes, I get that we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge the status quo where needed but there is almost literally no benefit to anyone by his decisions. Shouldn’t the government make the country better and not worse? Like he is taking us into the past with no improvement
You’re only incorrect on one point: he’s not taking us into the past. There has never been a time in the past that was comparable to the future he’s dumping us into.
The problem is that he’s spread such a large volume of misinformation that people select bits of it that THEY want to believe and accept those lies as truth while dismissing the rest.
One of the lies is that he’s returning America to how it was in some mythical golden age. That’s not where he’s taking it at all. That lie just gets buried under the others.