Prior to MAGA loyalist Matt Gaetz suddenly dropping out of considering at attorney general on Thursday afternoon, several Fox News personalities began bucking President-elect Donald Trump and suggesting that it probably “wasn’t a good idea” in the first place that he nominated the far-right firebrand.
The morning after The New York Times published a bombshell leaked document from the Department of Justice’s investigation into sex-trafficking allegations involving Gaetz, hosts of Trump’s favorite morning show Fox & Friends wondered if it was time to move on from the former Florida congressman.
Co-host Brian Kilmeade, an avid Trump acolyte, kicked off the program by noting the specter of the House Ethics Committee probe into accusations that Gaetz paid a 17-year-old girl for sex will continue to hang over his head. The committee was due to release a “highly damaging” report of its findings last week, only for its publication to be derailed by Gaetz’s abrupt resignation from Congress.
“If they can feel as though they can live with… whatever the ethics revelations come out, and he gets in front of people, he is such a strong communicator,” Kilmeade said, adding that Gaetz would need to “tone it down” if the ex-lawmaker wants to garner support for his nomination.
Colleague Steve Doocy, meanwhile, added that these aren’t “the kind of headlines” the Trump transition team wants to be dealing with, especially with the “constant drip, drip, drip every day of some new revelation” about Gaetz’s alleged actions.
“The Trump team’s got to be thinking, you know, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Doocy added. “We don’t want to be spinning our wheels. We don’t want the distraction. We would like to hit the ground running.”
While co-host Lawrence Jones said he “actually thinks the opposite” because Trump was “aware of the investigation before” and believes the DOJ is “unfair,” both Doocy and Kilmeade held to their belief that sticking with Gaetz would become untenable.
“Well, the front page in The New York Times says this: Federal inquiry traced payments from Gaetz to woman,” Kilmeade noted, reading from the Times article. “A document prepared by the federal investigators bolsters claims by women who say they were hired for sex. And then they go into it. First per The New York Times. So if this happens for the next two months, it might be too much.”
“It’s a lot,” Doocy added.
The couch-sitters at Fox & Friends, meanwhile, aren’t the only ones at the conservative cable giant who have been sounding the alarm over the damage Gaetz’s nomination could do to Trump’s recently acquired political capital.
Earlier this week, Fox News host Trey Gowdy—a former GOP congressman and prosecutor—warned Trump to “not use the justice system as a weapon,” adding that picking Gaetz tells Republicans he is doing just that.
“The message for Republicans is don’t do it on the other side, either, with this absurd A.G. pick that you just made,” he declared. “Justice is different. It is a combination of policy, law, and also morality. You do not use our justice system as a political weapon. Voters rejected it in November and will reject it if Republicans try to do it. Some things rise above the din. The justice system is one of those things.”
Additionally, Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen cited Gaetz’s own history of clashing with his fellow Republicans, notably when he masterminded Kevin McCarthy’s removal as speaker of the House, to urge Trump to name another nominee.
“Matt Gaetz is not the best choice. It’s not Republicans who have dirtied him up. This is a guy who stood on the floor of the House and drove the House into chaos by trying to overthrow Speaker McCarthy. So he’s burned bridges with the Republican Party.”
Besides getting pushback from the Fox News punditry class, Trump also received negative coverage over his pick from the New York Post. Both Fox News and the Post are owned by Rupert Murdoch. Calling the Gaetz nomination “dreadful” and “distracting, the Post’s editorial board groused that the ex-Florida congressman has “neither the ethics nor the discipline” to reform the DOJ, adding that he’s merely looking for “an escape hatch” from his own legal worries.
