MSNBC panelists suggested Friday that President-elect Donald Trump selected former Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general to divert attention from his other cabinet picks.
Gaez withdrew from consideration for the position Thursday, while Trump’s other controversial picks, such as Pete Hegseth, former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. remain under consideration. Republican strategist Doug Heye and former Democratic New York Rep. Steve Israel, on “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” argued that Trump’s decision to choose Gaetz was a calculated distraction.
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“I don’t think this was a miscalculation. This was very intentional. Donald Trump knew that Matt Gaetz was not going to be confirmed by Senate Republicans,” Heye said. “He would lose enough of them that there was no chance of this going through. So this was sort of a guided missile of Donald Trump.”
Host Andrea Mitchell asked if Trump knew the Senate would not confirm Gaetz ahead of his selection, to which Heye answered the president-elect “absolutely” did because of his reputation on Capitol Hill.
“This nomination was going to go nowhere. What it did, because it was the first of these sort of nominations, was it sent a very clear message to Senate Republicans and to the country at large: This is the direction I’m going.” the Republican strategist added. “What it did was it forced a lot of the conversation away from Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr. Now they’re at the front of the line and we have two months to go. This is going to be a long confirmation process, more than two months obviously once Trump gets in, but this was intentional. Not a miscalculation at all. It was strategic. Maybe bad strategy, but strategic.”
“I think that this was a rather clever, almost diabolical strategy by Donald Trump. We have been so focused on Matt Gaetz that we have lost focus on a nomination, several nominations that are just as concerning if not more so,” Israel responded. “The one that concerns me the most is my former colleague in the House, Tulsi Gabbard.”
Gaetz asserted on X Thursday that his confirmation to be attorney general was “unfairly becoming a distraction” to the efforts of Trump’s transition.
“There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General,” the former congressman wrote. “Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1.”
He clarified on Friday that he will not be joining the 119th Congress after resigning from the 118th after Trump named him to be his attorney general.
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