This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 21 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
On Thursday, Donald Trump failed the first big test of his second administration when Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration for attorney general. Trump’s pick for the top job at the Justice Department made the announcement after reportedly learning that the House Ethics Committee had heard testimony from a woman who said she had a second sexual encounter with Gaetz when she was underage. (A witness to one of those encounters said she did not believe Gaetz knew the woman was a minor at the time.)
Trump decisively lost this first fight with his own party and, in doing so, he proved that political gravity still exists.
Gaetz was already investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly sex trafficking a 17-year-old girl, which he denies. (Authorities ultimately decided not to bring charges.) Gaetz has also been the subject of a multiyear investigation by the House Ethics Committee into accusations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use, which he denies.
His confirmation was already looking like an uphill battle, with more than half of Senate Republicans saying that they did not expect Gaetz to get the necessary votes.
Trump wasted no time choosing his replacement. Hours later, he announced that he will nominate Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida. Bondi is a longtime Trump ally, she represented the then-president during his first impeachment trial. She is also a Fox News regular, even co-hosting an afternoon program while she was still serving as Florida’s top lawyer.
We will have to wait and see how Trump’s second choice for attorney general fares, but let’s be clear: He decisively lost this first fight with his own party and, in doing so, he proved that political gravity still exists.
Trump may have won more votes in swing states and eked out a plurality nationally, but that did not suddenly make him into a brilliant strategist. And it did not convert the band of miscreants around him into popular and confirmable figures.
Choosing Gaetz for this job was a dumb move; it was an unforced error. He is manifestly unqualified and unconfirmable. But of course, he’s not alone. The president-elect has chosen a menagerie of figures for his Cabinet, many of whom also face very serious accusations.
There’s Pete Hegseth, who was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 2017. He denies the allegation and says it was consensual. Police did not press charges against Hegseth, but he did admit to paying the woman a settlement. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is accused of sexually assaulting his 23-year-old babysitter. He has not exactly denied these allegations but has said that he is “not a church boy.” And there’s Linda McMahon, who was named in a child abuse lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges McMahon knew about a ringside announcer who allegedly abused young boys for years but did nothing about it. She has called that lawsuit “baseless.”
So if gravity does truly exist on planet Trump, those are the sorts of things that would sink any presidential nominee. In fact, a lot of people have gone down for far, far less.
The first major one of the modern era was Zoë Baird, President Bill Clinton’s first pick for attorney general in 1993. The week before Clinton’s inauguration, a front-page New York Times story broke the bombshell report that Baird had paid an undocumented nanny off the books.
Within a matter of days, “Nannygate,” as it came to be known, had blown up enough to destroy Baird’s nomination. Unfortunately for Clinton, his woes continued with his next nominee for the job, Judge Kimba Wood, who also had a nanny problem. However, unlike Baird, Wood had paid all the required taxes relating to the undocumented worker.
It’s undeniably good news that Gaetz will not be our next attorney general, but that does not relieve the pressure on Trump’s other picks.
Now, if you’re going to be attorney general of the United States, you should probably follow the law scrupulously. But these were obviously minor offenses, already resolved by paying back the relatively small amounts of money owed.
The trend continued, in a bipartisan fashion, into the George W. Bush administration. In 2001, Linda Chavez withdrew as Bush’s nominee for labor secretary over another controversy involving the employment of an undocumented immigrant. In 2004, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik’s nomination to run the Department of Homeland Security fell apart after it was alleged he too employed an undocumented immigrant as a nanny. It was also reported that Kerik was alleged to have had multiple extramarital affairs and financial issues.
But perhaps the most nonsensical flops came at the beginning of Barack Obama’s presidency when Nancy Killefer, his pick for chief performance officer, lost the job over a less than $1,000 tax bill and when Tom Daschle, nominee for health and human services secretary, was bumped because of free car rides he got from a wealthy friend.
That all looks pretty quaint in comparison with people such as Hegseth, Kennedy and Gaetz.
Now, it’s undeniably good news that Gaetz will not be our next attorney general, but that outcome does not relieve the pressure on Trump’s other picks. Republicans in the Senate have made it clear that they aren’t willing to publicly humiliate themselves for Trump’s wildly unqualified and unpopular choices. That means the fight is far from over.
Allison Detzel contributed.
