MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace was taken aback by former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal from the attorney general nomination process, saying she had anticipated he would be confirmed by the Senate.
“We were wrong,” Wallace said Thursday as she introduced her guest, former Republican National Committee spokesperson Tim Miller. “You and I said, ‘Matt Gaetz will be the attorney general. Trump wants to see how low he can go.’”
“Apparently, the answer to how low he can go is whatever is sort of above Matt Gaetz, and I don’t know, below, Pete Hegseth,” she added.
“It is interesting when you find out what a bridge too far for Donald Trump looks like. Apparently, it looks like Matt Gaetz.”
The Florida Republican on Thursday announced he was taking his name out of consideration for attorney general, saying “it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work” of President-elect Trump’s transition team.
Trump had announced Gaetz as his pick eight days earlier, despite controversy surrounding the now-former lawmaker following a Justice Department investigation into sex-trafficking allegations. He was not charged but still faced a House Ethics Committee investigation into alleged misconduct until he resigned from Congress last week.
Trump’s Cabinet picks have been deeply controversial. Among the other stunners were Hegseth, a Fox News host, for secretary of defense, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. He also tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, to be health secretary.
Miller said on MSNBC that it will be “a big test” to see if Republican senators allow Hegseth and Kennedy to be confirmed.
“Pete Hegseth is not in any meaningful sense more qualified than Matt Gaetz. He’s less qualified actually. He also has scandal in his private life and accusations, allegations of sexual assault,” Miller said.
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“And so, you know, there’s no difference between Hegseth and Gaetz,” he added. “So the question is, which one of these nominees will Trump actually put muscle behind? Maybe none, and if he does stand behind the rest of them, will these senators actually show backbone when they have to in public? I think that remains to be seen.”
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