I have a feeling that by doing that, Gaetz may have hoped to save his own skin, but foiled one of Trump's plans in a bigly way. The way I see it, the Gaetz nomination wasn't so much because Trump wanted him; it was probably intended as a loyalty test, to see which Senators he could count on to go along with whatever other harebrained scheme he came up with.
Many of the other nominees are pretty extreme, but none are as abysmal as Gaetz.
I dunno....don't you find it interesting that in Trump's tweet on this there was absolutely no fight, no name-calling of Dems, etc? Just essentially an appreciation that Gaetz did not want to be a "distraction" for the new administration. He HAD to know Gaetz's issues before nominating him....maybe he truly did not think there would be such pushback?? So as not to "lose", I think Trump sent someone to tell Gaetz he was resigning.
I think with the rest of the nominations Trump will really dig in his heels and truly threaten Senators behind the scenes to get them confirmed.
I think in the contrary, Trump picked him *because* of all the issues Gaetz had, as a test how much he could get away with, and how loyal his Senate buddies really are.
Gaetz pulled his nomination just minutes after being questioned by a CNN reporter about an immediately breaking story outlining that a second 17 year old witness had testified against him to the DOJ.
You think Trump wanted to bring that little informational nugget up in a social media post?
Trump wanted Gaetz as AG, badly. He was personally manning the phones, cajoling and threatening reluctant GOP Senators into confirming Gaetz....right up until Gaetz pulled his hat out of the ring.
From Forbes: "Gaetz—who won reelection in his Florida congressional district with 66.3% of the vote—could run for his own seat again in a special election, political science professor at Florida Gulf Coast University Peter Bergerson told Verify earlier this week."
It was a simple quid pro quo - Gaetz is one of the most despised people in the House. Nobody wants him even there, except DJT. "Withdraw, and we won't release the Ethics Report - for now."
Gaetz wants to run for Florida governor in 2026. DeSantis is term-limited and won't be able to run.
His quitting Congress kills the ethics probe and eliminates a major impediment to Gaetz persuading Florida's high buck Republican donors to support him.
Trump’s going to be most unhappy when he finds out he blew off unrecoverable political capital on Gaetz when Gaetz was scamming him for his own wants all along.
Honestly, I'm not sure if this isn't a bait and switch. Nominate the biggest POS you can find, and when they withdraw, as planned, nominate a lesser POS while everyone is breathing a sigh of relief over the big POS being out of the running.
I would agree with you, but Trump's got a problem. Very few people really want to serve in his administration. That's how you get Getz in the first place. Secondly, there's a numbers problem. Thune and Johnson have *very* slim majorities. Neither one of them are going to be pleased about Trump offering the job to one of their members.
I guess Trump could decide to nominate his defense attorney Todd Blanche, who he'd picked for Deputy AG or Emil Bove, who he'd decided to nominate as Associate Deputy AG. Those two would qualify as lesser POS and not impact the GOP majorities in Congress. Despite the fact Bove and Blanche represented Trump, they're much more qualified than Getz.
Ha - I got the notification for this at the exact same second that the breaking news notification came for Gaetz's withdrawal. Now, which to read first???
Jay--I want to focus on another part of today's newsletter; e.g. whether or not the president can adjourn congress and, if so, for how long. One of the reasons I subscribe is because of your legal analysis which, as an old retired lawyer, I always enjoy, so I want to run this by you. You are right that in case of disagreement the president can adjourn congress. But, setting aside what "disagreement" is and whether it includes disagreement as to whether adjourn altogether instead of disagreement as to the date of adjournment, for how long can the president adjourn them? The 20th Amendment, Sect 2 says that Congress "shall" assemble "at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they by law appoint a different date." We both know what "shall" means in statutes. So, I would argue that although the president can adjourn them "to such Time as he shall think proper", (Article II, Sect. 3) that Time can't last beyond the end of that year's session and that a new unadjourned session begins in on January 3rd and the president can't do anything about that.
Wait, his resignation only counts for his term until the next session starting in January? He can simply take his seat? I hope then the report gets released.
“I hereby resign as U.S. representative of Florida’s 1st Congressional District effective immediately. And I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress to pursue the position of attorney general in the Trump administration,” Gaetz said in the letter.
Despite the fact that Gaetz just withdrew, I would like to comment thusly: Thune is going to look pretty weak if he doesn't establish his strength from the get-go. So unless he's a complete incompetent (which he very well could be but we'll see), he can't let Trump walk all over him. He has to keep the Senate in session and claim its traditional role or he's toast.
As Mary said, this may have been a sham nomination.
Perhaps (ugh!) the plan all along was for “round one” of cabinet nominations to be full of un-qualified, un-approvable, rabid sycophants such that we’d all breathe a sigh of relief and go along when “round two” of nominations was filled with “mere” poorly-qualified, headache-inducing, boot-lickers.
With great effort and courage, maybe we could defeat “round two” as well, thereby raising the bar high enough to allow ONLY dim-witted, underhanded lackeys into the Cabinet.
I am upset I didn’t hit send a few minutes earlier.
Start working on the Hegseth post NOW!
And one for RFK jr.!
it’s okay! you were still Nostradamus on this.
It was still an awesome read, Jay!
Yes, perfect timing.
I have a feeling that by doing that, Gaetz may have hoped to save his own skin, but foiled one of Trump's plans in a bigly way. The way I see it, the Gaetz nomination wasn't so much because Trump wanted him; it was probably intended as a loyalty test, to see which Senators he could count on to go along with whatever other harebrained scheme he came up with.
Many of the other nominees are pretty extreme, but none are as abysmal as Gaetz.
I also wonder if it was to give him a legitimate excuse to resign before the house ethics committee report came out.
Winner winner chicken dinner!
Yes he just withdrew. The timing of this post is hilarious 😂
Guardrail Protecting Democracy Turns out to be Venmo
https://open.substack.com/pub/borowitzreport/p/guardrail-protecting-democracy-turns?r=fqsxl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
😂
Yes! Gates just withdrew :-)
Yup!!! Maybe more of the dominoes will start to fall!
Seriously?? Does he get his seat in the House back? He resigned that.
My theory is this was a sham nomination to give him an excuse to resign and not have the report released.
Gaetz wants to run for DeSantis' job in 2026. DeSantis is termed out after this term. But he needed to kill the ethics report first
Trump might not have known that.
But Gaetz' gambit won't work if the report gets leaked anyway.
Geez, I'm getting out of Florida just in time. Pity poor Florida. Even Republicans may be praying of a Cat 10 hurricane for November 2026.
If he tries to take back his seat, it will be released.
He’ll be a sitting member of Congress.
What??!!???
If you think so, you don't understand how Trump thinks. This looks very bad for Trump.
Nothing looks bad for Trump, because he follows no rules.
I can guarantee you that Trump is pissed about this, and sees it as a failure...or, more likely, is trying to spin it as a betrayal.
But, make no mistake, it reflects poorly on him and he knows it.
“I don’t know Matt Gaetz. I’ve never met him.”
I dunno....don't you find it interesting that in Trump's tweet on this there was absolutely no fight, no name-calling of Dems, etc? Just essentially an appreciation that Gaetz did not want to be a "distraction" for the new administration. He HAD to know Gaetz's issues before nominating him....maybe he truly did not think there would be such pushback?? So as not to "lose", I think Trump sent someone to tell Gaetz he was resigning.
I think with the rest of the nominations Trump will really dig in his heels and truly threaten Senators behind the scenes to get them confirmed.
I think in the contrary, Trump picked him *because* of all the issues Gaetz had, as a test how much he could get away with, and how loyal his Senate buddies really are.
Gaetz pulled his nomination just minutes after being questioned by a CNN reporter about an immediately breaking story outlining that a second 17 year old witness had testified against him to the DOJ.
You think Trump wanted to bring that little informational nugget up in a social media post?
Trump wanted Gaetz as AG, badly. He was personally manning the phones, cajoling and threatening reluctant GOP Senators into confirming Gaetz....right up until Gaetz pulled his hat out of the ring.
That’s exactly what I thought!!
He could run in the election to fill the seat he vacated but then the Ethics Committee report could be made public when he wins the seat.
The ethics report would come out IF he was able to do a do-over. Have you assume it was bad if he gave up his seat rather than have it come to light.
From Forbes: "Gaetz—who won reelection in his Florida congressional district with 66.3% of the vote—could run for his own seat again in a special election, political science professor at Florida Gulf Coast University Peter Bergerson told Verify earlier this week."
And then the Ethics Committee could act upon their report. He won't do that.
I hope NOT!
What??????
And may he have many, many more failures.
He just withdrew.
But I don't like it, it's too easy; way too easy. I know it's exhausting, but we need to keep our eyes open.
It was a simple quid pro quo - Gaetz is one of the most despised people in the House. Nobody wants him even there, except DJT. "Withdraw, and we won't release the Ethics Report - for now."
Everyone knows what's in that report, and if he were innocent they would have already released it. This is something else.
It's public pressure, period.
Nothing changes minds and policies faster than a thoroughly outraged populace.
I appreciate your enthusiasm, but trump doesn't care. It's not over.
Gaetz wants to run for Florida governor in 2026. DeSantis is term-limited and won't be able to run.
His quitting Congress kills the ethics probe and eliminates a major impediment to Gaetz persuading Florida's high buck Republican donors to support him.
Trump’s going to be most unhappy when he finds out he blew off unrecoverable political capital on Gaetz when Gaetz was scamming him for his own wants all along.
That will shut everyone up, then when the tome comes his name will be on the list anyway and the Republicans will okay it.
Or a recess appointment.
Honestly, I'm not sure if this isn't a bait and switch. Nominate the biggest POS you can find, and when they withdraw, as planned, nominate a lesser POS while everyone is breathing a sigh of relief over the big POS being out of the running.
I would agree with you, but Trump's got a problem. Very few people really want to serve in his administration. That's how you get Getz in the first place. Secondly, there's a numbers problem. Thune and Johnson have *very* slim majorities. Neither one of them are going to be pleased about Trump offering the job to one of their members.
I guess Trump could decide to nominate his defense attorney Todd Blanche, who he'd picked for Deputy AG or Emil Bove, who he'd decided to nominate as Associate Deputy AG. Those two would qualify as lesser POS and not impact the GOP majorities in Congress. Despite the fact Bove and Blanche represented Trump, they're much more qualified than Getz.
It will be some Heritage Foundation lawyer with deep ties to Project 2025.
My crystal ball came back from the shop and they still didn't fix it. Mea culpa. tRump went in for more corruption. Whoda thunk...
Especially since Pam Bondi was put forth so very quickly.
Ha - I got the notification for this at the exact same second that the breaking news notification came for Gaetz's withdrawal. Now, which to read first???
Love it!!!😁
Fail! Keep up the pressure. Only a dozen more clowns to go.
Jay--I want to focus on another part of today's newsletter; e.g. whether or not the president can adjourn congress and, if so, for how long. One of the reasons I subscribe is because of your legal analysis which, as an old retired lawyer, I always enjoy, so I want to run this by you. You are right that in case of disagreement the president can adjourn congress. But, setting aside what "disagreement" is and whether it includes disagreement as to whether adjourn altogether instead of disagreement as to the date of adjournment, for how long can the president adjourn them? The 20th Amendment, Sect 2 says that Congress "shall" assemble "at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they by law appoint a different date." We both know what "shall" means in statutes. So, I would argue that although the president can adjourn them "to such Time as he shall think proper", (Article II, Sect. 3) that Time can't last beyond the end of that year's session and that a new unadjourned session begins in on January 3rd and the president can't do anything about that.
Those who ever say "trump wouldn’t dare go so far" still have no idea what we are dealing with.
I’m sure of only one thing…we haven’t seen the last of this slimeball.
Now that's what I call timely commentary! Bye-bye, Matt!
Now will he try to get back into the House via the special election?
He's already won election for the next session of Congress
I hope the second he's sworn in they release the ethics report and he's forced to resign. That would be magical.
Since when are rape allegations and paying off sex partners a deal breaker for Republicans (when they're the ones doing it, that is)?
So many people in the House hate him, that is not farfetched.
I wish.
He has resigned. The fact that he won reelection doesn't matter.
He would have to run again to regain the seat.
Now the concern is that DeSantis will tap him to fill Rubio's Senate seat....if Rubio is confirmed.
Unless Ron decides to take Rubio's seat himself.
Good point. So his resignation only affected his current session and not the one starting in January? I thought it was both.
Wait, his resignation only counts for his term until the next session starting in January? He can simply take his seat? I hope then the report gets released.
“I hereby resign as U.S. representative of Florida’s 1st Congressional District effective immediately. And I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress to pursue the position of attorney general in the Trump administration,” Gaetz said in the letter.
I wonder if "do not intend to" carries any legal weight, or is just an announcement of his intention.
I hope NOT, as I said above!
Yes there's speculation that's exactly what he's gonna do 😡
The headlines are all about the one 17 year old, but good gawd look at all the lines on that chart of Venmo payments.
No doubt the next guy will be just as horrifying, but I’ll take the win of having Botox Beavis out of government
“Botox Beavis”. Brilliant. 🤪
Despite the fact that Gaetz just withdrew, I would like to comment thusly: Thune is going to look pretty weak if he doesn't establish his strength from the get-go. So unless he's a complete incompetent (which he very well could be but we'll see), he can't let Trump walk all over him. He has to keep the Senate in session and claim its traditional role or he's toast.
As Mary said, this may have been a sham nomination.
Perhaps (ugh!) the plan all along was for “round one” of cabinet nominations to be full of un-qualified, un-approvable, rabid sycophants such that we’d all breathe a sigh of relief and go along when “round two” of nominations was filled with “mere” poorly-qualified, headache-inducing, boot-lickers.
With great effort and courage, maybe we could defeat “round two” as well, thereby raising the bar high enough to allow ONLY dim-witted, underhanded lackeys into the Cabinet.