How Far Would Matt Gaetz Go?
The DailyYou’re reading The New Yorker’s daily newsletter, a guide to our top stories, featuring exclusive insights from our writers and editors. Sign up to receive it in your in-box.In today’s newsletter, Trump’s shocking pick for Attorney General. Plus:Jia Tolentino on “Your body, my choice”Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s elegiac farceA drama of women’s solidarity in MumbaiMatt Gaetz. Photograph by Mark Peterson / Redux for The New YorkerDexter FilkinsStaff writerWhen I met Matt Gaetz earlier this year after a Republican campaign event in Little Elm, Texas—where he’d just wowed a crowd at a beer hall, sharing his plans to save “a diminished country”—I asked him what kind of philosophy he was bringing to his work. He described it as “a populist-flavored libertarianism—or a libertarian-flavored populism.” And then Gaetz went on, describing his view of Congress, where he’d served since 2017. “It’s just so corrupt,” he said. “That’s my principal thesis. It’s just broken.” To that end, at least, Gaetz, whom President-elect Donald Trump chose yesterday to be his Attorney General, has been consistent: in eight years as a congressman in Washington, Gaetz directed his energies to tearing down and mocking what he regards as the corrupt political order, sometimes by means so audacious that his colleagues in the House had never dared to try. Gaetz’s personal life has been similarly unrestrained; he was investigated by the Department of Justice over allegations that he had helped transport a seventeen-year-old girl across state lines, and was facing the results of an investigation into that and other matters by the House Ethics Committee.How far is Gaetz willing to go? Following Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 Presidential election, Gaetz was one of a number of members of Congress who met with Vice-President Mike Pence to discuss using parliamentary rules to reject electors’ votes. At the same time, Gaetz sought a sweeping Presidential pardon for himself, for any and all crimes he might have committed—a pardon that would have been more generous than the one received by President Richard Nixon, in 1974, after he resigned during the Watergate scandal. (Trump ignored Gaetz’s request.) And in 2023, Gaetz led the effort to topple House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, on the grounds that he had coöperated with Democratic leaders to avoid a potentially catastrophic default on the federal government’s debt. With just a handful of other Republicans, Gaetz succeeded spectacularly, making McCarthy the first House Speaker in American history to be ousted from the position.Gaetz donned a gas mask on the House floor to dramatize the tyranny of COVID restrictions, and he reportedly flashed other members risqué photos of women he’d claimed to have slept with. He can be very funny. When I reminded Gaetz that the Wall Street Journal editorial board, after he went after McCarthy, called him the leader of the “chaos caucus,’’ he shot back, “It was the first regime change they’ve ever opposed.”Now, as Trump’s nominee to become the nation’s highest law-enforcement officer, Gaetz—and the country—will face a couple of consequential questions: What, if anything, does he intend to build? And what norms and rules is he willing to respect? In his memoir, “Firebrand,” published in 2020, Gaetz suggested that such questions, even for a congressman, were beside the point. “All political lives end in failure, in a sense, but some are spectacular,’’ he writes. “Better to be a spectacle than to end up having never said anything worth cancelling because nobody was listening in the first place.”Maybe Senate Republicans, despite proving themselves reliably supine during Trump’s first term, will press him for answers.A New Rallying Cry for the Irony-Poisoned RightIt took less than twenty-four hours after Trump’s reëlection for young men to take up a slogan that could define the coming era of gendered regression: “Your body, my choice.” Jia Tolentino reports »More Top StoriesWhy the Humanitarian Situation in Gaza Is Worse Than It’s Ever Been“Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!” and “Gatz” Beat On Against the CurrentThe Gorgeous Mumbai Rhapsody of “All We Imagine as Light”Daily CartoonCopy link to cartoonCopy link to cartoonLink copiedShopShopCartoon by Bob EcksteinMore Fun & GamesPlay today’s bite-size puzzle. A clue: Think the world of. Five letters.P.S. Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by Trump as his pick to be director of National Intelligence. Revisit Kelefa Sanneh’s Profile of the woman who used to be a pro-choice Democrat, before joining the G.O.P. “She’s got a servant attitude, a servant’s heart,” her guru, a man named Chris Butler, has said. “Whether she’s in politics or anything else, she’s going to take that same servant’s heart with her.”Hannah Jocelyn contributed to today’s edition.
In today’s newsletter, Trump’s shocking pick for Attorney General. Plus:
- Jia Tolentino on “Your body, my choice”
- Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s elegiac farce
- A drama of women’s solidarity in Mumbai
Dexter Filkins
Staff writer
When I met Matt Gaetz earlier this year after a Republican campaign event in Little Elm, Texas—where he’d just wowed a crowd at a beer hall, sharing his plans to save “a diminished country”—I asked him what kind of philosophy he was bringing to his work. He described it as “a populist-flavored libertarianism—or a libertarian-flavored populism.” And then Gaetz went on, describing his view of Congress, where he’d served since 2017. “It’s just so corrupt,” he said. “That’s my principal thesis. It’s just broken.”
To that end, at least, Gaetz, whom President-elect Donald Trump chose yesterday to be his Attorney General, has been consistent: in eight years as a congressman in Washington, Gaetz directed his energies to tearing down and mocking what he regards as the corrupt political order, sometimes by means so audacious that his colleagues in the House had never dared to try. Gaetz’s personal life has been similarly unrestrained; he was investigated by the Department of Justice over allegations that he had helped transport a seventeen-year-old girl across state lines, and was facing the results of an investigation into that and other matters by the House Ethics Committee.
How far is Gaetz willing to go? Following Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 Presidential election, Gaetz was one of a number of members of Congress who met with Vice-President Mike Pence to discuss using parliamentary rules to reject electors’ votes. At the same time, Gaetz sought a sweeping Presidential pardon for himself, for any and all crimes he might have committed—a pardon that would have been more generous than the one received by President Richard Nixon, in 1974, after he resigned during the Watergate scandal. (Trump ignored Gaetz’s request.) And in 2023, Gaetz led the effort to topple House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, on the grounds that he had coöperated with Democratic leaders to avoid a potentially catastrophic default on the federal government’s debt. With just a handful of other Republicans, Gaetz succeeded spectacularly, making McCarthy the first House Speaker in American history to be ousted from the position.
Gaetz donned a gas mask on the House floor to dramatize the tyranny of COVID restrictions, and he reportedly flashed other members risqué photos of women he’d claimed to have slept with. He can be very funny. When I reminded Gaetz that the Wall Street Journal editorial board, after he went after McCarthy, called him the leader of the “chaos caucus,’’ he shot back, “It was the first regime change they’ve ever opposed.”
Now, as Trump’s nominee to become the nation’s highest law-enforcement officer, Gaetz—and the country—will face a couple of consequential questions: What, if anything, does he intend to build? And what norms and rules is he willing to respect? In his memoir, “Firebrand,” published in 2020, Gaetz suggested that such questions, even for a congressman, were beside the point. “All political lives end in failure, in a sense, but some are spectacular,’’ he writes. “Better to be a spectacle than to end up having never said anything worth cancelling because nobody was listening in the first place.”
Maybe Senate Republicans, despite proving themselves reliably supine during Trump’s first term, will press him for answers.
A New Rallying Cry for the Irony-Poisoned Right
It took less than twenty-four hours after Trump’s reëlection for young men to take up a slogan that could define the coming era of gendered regression: “Your body, my choice.” Jia Tolentino reports »
- Why the Humanitarian Situation in Gaza Is Worse Than It’s Ever Been
- “Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!” and “Gatz” Beat On Against the Current
- The Gorgeous Mumbai Rhapsody of “All We Imagine as Light”
Daily Cartoon
P.S. Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by Trump as his pick to be director of National Intelligence. Revisit Kelefa Sanneh’s Profile of the woman who used to be a pro-choice Democrat, before joining the G.O.P. “She’s got a servant attitude, a servant’s heart,” her guru, a man named Chris Butler, has said. “Whether she’s in politics or anything else, she’s going to take that same servant’s heart with her.”
Hannah Jocelyn contributed to today’s edition.
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