Snapshot: Matt Gaetz is Out

A moment to celebrate the exit of this odious nominee for Attorney General

The odious Mr. Gaetz is leaving the building. (Photo by Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images)

So in the last few hours, Matt Gaetz withdrew his nomination for U.S. Attorney of the United States. What a relief. A genuine reason to celebrate.

Gaetz’s nomination by Trump was an appalling attack on the most basic qualifications we should expect from an Attorney General, the nation’s top law enforcement official. Is it too much to expect a nominee who hasn’t been credibly accused of sex trafficking minors, possesses legal experience, cares about what’s factually true, respects the purpose of the Department of Justice, which is to serve and provide justice? Is it too much to ask for an AG who is not just there as Trump’s henchman—his Roy Cohn—to pursue retribution against his perceived enemies and drive out good and capable people at the DOJ?

We will find out in the coming days whether Gaetz exited because the House ethics report about his copious sexual activity and alleged trafficking of minors was about to be released (it still should) and/or the widely despised Gaetz grasped that he was too odious for even some Republican senators. This is how the former Florida congressman put it: “While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition.”

So this is a moment to exhale. To recognize we dodged that bullet.

We can only hope that a similar fate awaits Pete Hegseth (for Secretary of Defense), Tulsi Gabbard (for Director of National Intelligence) and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (for Secretary of Health and Human Services). Their departures would literally save lives—and I hope that many of us will reach out to our Senators to communicate our horror at these profoundly unqualified and unsafe nominations. We should also express the necessity of President Joe Biden demanding FBI background checks on these nominees, since we have already heard that Trump won’t do it.

But we should also brace ourselves and prepare for whoever is nominated next by Trump. As I’ve said here and elsewhere, it's always a winning bet to predict that the bottomless Trump will do something even worse than we imagined. We should assume someone else will be selected with his own variety of awfulness.

Sorry for the sobriety in a moment for celebration. But these are times to be clear-eyed and realistic. These are times to do what we can to confront the dangers before us—and know that we still possess the power to influence the outcome.

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