Trump Played Matt

Poor Matt.

When Papa Gaetz spoke with Politico, one sentence he said kept ringing in my ears: “I think it’s fair to say Matt was not seeking the job.”

Matt Gaetz, until recently, was a sitting congressman and the U.S. Representative for Florida's 1st Congressional District. On November 5, he won reelection by a massive 32-point margin.

Trump selected three House members to join his administration. He tapped Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, Elise Stefanik for U.N. Ambassador, and Mike Waltz for National Security Advisor.

One day before the House Ethics Committee was set to release a report on allegations of underage sexual abuse and illegal drug use against him, Matt Gaetz resigned, becoming a private citizen and preempting the release of the ethics report. This move allowed House Speaker Mike Johnson to claim he couldn’t release the Ethics Committee report on a private citizen.

Only Gaetz resigned. Not Stefanik. Not Waltz.

Smart move, eh? Gaetz effectively avoided the release of his alleged misdeeds. But if he thought the House Ethics Committee report was bad enough to warrant resigning, why on earth would he willingly go through a grueling Senate confirmation process? Such a process would put his past under a national spotlight. The Democrats would undoubtedly come armed with tough questions—and so would some Republican senators unwilling to support him.

Everything in that report, and likely much more, would tumble out of the closet. It would be ugly, brutal, sordid, and revolting, with Gaetz at the center of it all. There’s no way Gaetz would have signed up for this. If he had, he wouldn’t have bothered resigning from the House to block the report in the first place.

Now, daily reports are surfacing about his past.

So, Papa Gaetz was right:

There can only be one reason Trump chose this path: he wants to identify which GOP senators are ready to fall in line and who is willing to stand their ground. For those who attempt to act as a check on his desire for unbridled power, he can use this opportunity to weaponize the MAGA base against them. What a fearsome spectacle it will be for those in the House and Senate who still believe they have a job to do.

It is a threat. It is a challenge. Trump is using his honeymoon period to beat them all into submission. The message is clear: Dare to cross me, and we will take you out during the primaries.

Thankfully, for whatever reason, the Rupert Murdoch media empire has aligned against Trump’s decision to pick Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard.

“The House Ethics Committee on Wednesday declined to release its report on alleged misconduct by former Rep. Matt Gaetz. However, given the gravity of the accusations, this won’t be the end of it. The Senate has every right to demand access to the report on Mr. Gaetz before confirming his nomination as President-elect Trump’s next Attorney General,” opined The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

The Senate indeed has every right to demand it.

Pressure against these picks has come from unexpected quarters, providing GOP senators some breathing room to oppose Donald Trump’s choices. The Trump-MAGA personalities, Fox News, and the entire right-wing media ecosystem operate like a well-oiled machine when targeting Democrats. But once they take power, they resemble a nation at war, governed by feudal warlords.

Trump attempted to bully the Senate into submission before even assuming power, but it doesn’t appear to be working.