The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump's Controversial Attorney General Pick Withdraws

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

The former Florida congressman's nomination encountered controversy from the start, over allegations that he participated in sex parties, used illegal drugs and had sex with a minor. Both the House ethics committee and the FBI investigated the allegations; the federal investigation closed without charges, and the House investigation was not made public.This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Susan Davis, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han and Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And president-elect Donald Trump's pick to be attorney general has withdrawn from consideration. Matt Gaetz, the former congressman from Florida, made the announcement in a statement this afternoon. He posted on X, formerly Twitter, that, quote, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump-Vance transition.

There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle." Sue, let's start here. Why was Gates's nomination, in his words, a distraction? Okay, there's a lot. So I think we should start from the minimally controversial and we'll move up. I think one, there was questions about his qualifications and his legal resume. He didn't have much legal experience to be the chief law enforcement officer of the country. Two, he's been this sort of outlandish, provocative personality on Capitol Hill, not particularly popular among his colleagues. He was a bleeding figure who helped oust former speaker Kevin McCarthy. And then to the more controversial,

he was once the subject of a federal investigation into alleged sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. The Justice Department ended that probe last year. They ultimately decided not to bring charges against him. But that didn't take away from a House Ethics Committee that had had an ongoing investigation into Gates for those very allegations because sometimes things can be unethical even if they weren't illegal and Gates had had a very confrontational relationship with the ethics committee and was refusing to participate in that investigation. So there was a lot there. I think from the minute that Donald Trump announced that Gates was his nominee, it was very clear that at a minimum this was

going to be an uphill battle for confirmation in the Senate. And that House ethics report, both Republicans and Democrats alike were calling for it to be released. However, there was pretty strong disagreement on the ethics committee itself about what should happen. Look, there was a deadlock on this. Historically, when a member of Congress resigns from the House or Senate, the ethics committees no longer have jurisdiction over them. Again, they're not a legal body. It's just sort of an internal HR in a sort of ways for Congress. And Gates, it seemed to be clear that he was residing from Congress to try to stop this report from ever coming

out. Could they still release it? There's probably arguably a way, but probably not. I mean, once you're out of the running here, I think that the pressure for the public right to know or for the Senate's right to know what was in this unfinished report sort of fades away, much like Gates himself. If he's no longer up for nomination, then I think the House would feel less compelled to force a vote to release an unfinished report that would probably break with precedent in the House prior to this. Yeah. Mara, just yesterday, Gates met with Republican members of the Senate. He was going

around with JD Vance, the incoming vice president, to lobby them to confirm him early next year. Did those meetings go less well yesterday than they let on? Well, usually when a nominee drops out, it's because he's not making any headway. He's not getting more votes. And it sounds like the Vance and Gates show wasn't getting a lot of supporters. But I think that what this means politically

is that Donald Trump had a real take-it-or-leave-it approach to sending nominees to the Senate. He said, you either vote for them or I'm going to push them through in recess appointments. And he had almost total control over the Republican Party and I'm actually surprised about this because I thought this was almost like a test for Republican senators to see if they were willing

to defy him. And instead, this is almost a normal situation. When there's a nominee that's as unpopular as Gates, they often don't make it. And look, Gates is not the only nominee who is facing a difficult path in the Senate. Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine, told our colleague Claudia Grisales today that Gates was the worst of Trump's nominees. He was the most problematic, but he's not the only one. And so this pressure test between Trump and the Senate, I think, is still very much real. And I think the question is, if Trump is like, okay, you got Gates, I'm not going to push with him, but

the rest of them, you really better do it. And so I think the potential for confrontation here is still very, very real. Yeah. So Trump did put out a message on Truth Social. He said, I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be attorney general. He was doing very well, but at the same time did not want to be a distraction for the administration, for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do! Okay, let's take a break. More in a moment.

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And we're back. And I want to talk about whether what happened with Matt Gaetz may be an indication of larger issues facing the Trump transition. Mara, there have been four cabinet picks announced by Trump already who are widely seen as controversial or tough to confirm. There was Gates and now he's out of the picture. But does that make it potentially easier for the Senate to confirm the other three? That's Pete Hegseth at the Department of Defense, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Department of Health and Human Services, and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. I think it probably does make it easier. This is a Senate that didn't want to go up against

its brand new president of their own party. And I think that it's gonna be very hard to have another defeat for these important nominations. I really do. Now, there is a lot of concern about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. At Health and Human Services Certainly Tulsi Gabbard who has said nice things about Vladimir Putin For her to be the director of national intelligence

And I don't know I want to know what's what sue thinks here does the Senate have an appetite to do this again to Donald Trump? That's a great question I think that those three nominees are likely the ones that the focus is going to go to next. I would make this note that John Brasso, who's the incoming number two Senate Republican, he's going to be a whip in the new Congress, put out a statement this morning saying Hegseth has his support and he expects a quick and early vote in January for him, which is very typical for national security nominees. So you do sort of see the leadership of the party moving in favor of confirming someone like Hegseth. But yeah, the bigger point is that like some combination of these folks are going to get confirmed.

I think each of them presents different comfort levels for different Republican senators, but I don't think there is broad appetite to just be seen as dismissing out of hand a lot of Donald Trump's nominees, especially because look, Donald Trump ran a campaign in which he was going to run a different kind of government with a different kind of people. And while they may shake the sensibilities of the quote unquote Washington elite, I think that a lot of Donald Trump supporters look at folks like this and think exactly like this is what we want, like change up the people and the players who run government because we want change. And I think senators, even

if they don't particularly love these individual nominees, are recognizing that the politics, certainly within the party, may not play to their favor to be seen as going against Donald Trump and building out the cabinet that he wants to have. Yeah. And don't forget, the agenda hasn't changed. He's going to get somebody else to run the Department of Justice and perhaps do exactly what Matt Gaetz would have done in maybe in a more sober, less flashy way. But if he wants to use the Department of Justice to go after his political enemies,

which he has said many times he does, I expect that he will get somebody who can pass the Senate that will do that. Do we have any sense of who that could be? There's been some speculation in the Senate today. Our colleagues who are up there, a couple of them heard from senators, the name Ken Paxton, who's the attorney general of the state of Texas. That's somebody who could probably get through. But I think it's pretty clear that Donald Trump hasn't been asking senators for their input on a lot of these. The thing we do know is that Donald Trump cares deeply about the Justice Department and thinks that there is corruption at its

core and he wants a change agent and he wants someone who agrees with him on that thesis and he wants someone who's going to sort of uproot the place and fix it up in his mind. So I think it's going to continue to potentially be someone who's either seen as an outsider, seen as a Trump loyalist, seen as someone who is willing to sort of go up against the government or some combination of those three things. I don't think it's going to be an easy, obvious, you know, lifelong government veteran type of pick. What is next for Matt Gaetz, Sue? I mean, maybe he could get a job that doesn't need confirmation, like work in the White House, or would he unresign his House seat? Is that possible? Technically, it's possible. He could not unresign and rejoin this Congress, which runs

until January 3rd. But in his resignation letter, he said it was not his intention to take the oath of office on January 3rd. Remember, he still won that election in November. He could technically still join the next Congress as a member. But think about this, it would reignite that Ethics Committee investigation and that Ethics Committee report would be back on the table. So I think considering how hard he's worked to keep that report out of the public eye, that seems unlikely at this moment. All right, well, that is all for today. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Mara Eliason, senior national political correspondent.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.