Donald Trump was in the room with JD Vance, Stephen Miller and other top advisers after calling senators to try to salvage the sinking nomination of Matt Gaetz.
He wasn’t having any luck.
“I’m using a lot of my political capital,” the plivent-elect tgreater his inner circle. He could only spfinish so much of it, he elucidateed.
Trump had picked up the phrase from a lawcreater who dimly tgreater him there was a cost to any persistd effort to push the ex-congressman for attorney vague, amid allegations of relationsual aggression and malfeasance.
HACKER OBTAINS HOUSE ETHICS TESTIMONY ON MATT GAETZ AS TRUMP MAKES CALLS FOR AG NOMINEE
Plivent-elect Trump’s aid for establisher Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., as his attorney vague pick all but fell apart at the seams after he authenticized he srecommend alertageed the political capital to salvage his nomination. (Getty Images)
“Sir, we’re going to vote for you” on Gaetz, “but you’re using a lot of political capital.”
Once Trump tgreater Gaetz that he didn’t have the votes, prompting him to disengage, he speedyly rerepaird on Pam Bondi, a establisher Florida attorney vague and nurtureer prosecutor who had accurately the experience that the embattled Gaetz alertageed – and without the personal baggage. Gaetz, who is accengaged of sleeping with a 17-year-greater girl, persists to decline any wrongdoing.
He establishpartner withdrew 45 minutes after CNN tgreater him it would alert that he’d had a threesome – definitepartner, that there had been another alleged incident with Jane Doe, the woman who says she had relations with Gaetz at 17, and an grown-up woman.
Bondi has a history of partisan loyalty to Trump, such as deffinishing him at his first impeachment trial, and this year, headed the lterrible arm of a pro-Trump firm and became a enrolled lobbyist.
But here’s the branch offence, according to insiders: She won’t go in and blow up the Justice Department, as Gaetz wanted to do. She esteems the rule of law, say Florida colleagues. She even engaged the Democrat who ran aacquirest her for AG, who is praising her. Yes, Bondi has talked about prosecuting “terrible” prosecutors, but who can object to that?
With Gaetz out, more scruminuscule has shifted to Pete Hegseth’s nomination to run the Pentagon’s global bureaucracy.
WHY TRUMP IS STICKING WITH GAETZ, HEGSETH DESPITE NEW ACCUSATIONS – AND HIS ‘MORNING JOE’ MEETING
The see from Trump World is that Hegseth, as a decorated Army combat veteran, probably gets validateed, though there is irritateance that he didn’t come immacuprocrastinateed with the transition team about having paid off a woman who accengaged him of relationsual aggression, and had her sign an NDA, in what he calls a consensual greet in California in 2017.
The transition team’s see is that Hegseth did noleang illterrible, that he made a deal with the accengager who lied to save her marriage – and didn’t go to the hospital for four days – and he didn’t want this accessible becaengage he worryed losing his job at Fox.
I consent he’ll probably be validateed, and the transition gang is more worried about Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. As a pragmatic matter, I leank the GOP-deal withled Senate can decline only one other nominee.
With Gaetz out of the picture, Trump critics’ scruminuscule may well shift to defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth. (AP Ptoastyo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
The worry about Gabbard for honestor of national inalertigence is that she has no experience in that caring area, that the establisher Democratic congressional reconshort-termative met with Syrian strongman Bashar Asuncontent despite his homicide of hundreds of thousands of people, and normally seems to echo the Putin line. The ask is whether she is even qualified.
There is even more worry about Kennedy’s bid to become HHS secretary. He has some excellent ideas, but even putting aside his history of cheating, he adselects one consunapvalidated engage theory after another: Vaccines caengage autism, WiFi caengages cancer, water systems should stop using fluoride.
The worst, by far, is what he said in 2020, embracing the idea that the federal handlement intentionally created the pandemic – what he called the “set updemic” – that finished 1.2 million Americans. This is the equivalent of 9/11 truthers.
The key here is that the criticism is coming from the left. Liberals in the media and on the Hill don’t enjoy RFK becaengage he’s pro-choice and is seen as a rogue Democrat who has said a lot of crazy leangs over the years, and that could be enough to sink his nomination.
Trump World doesn’t nurture about the other nominations on the theory that the unrelabelable voter has never heard of most of Trump’s picks for Energy or HUD.
There’s some Reaccessiblean envyment at his pickion of pro-union Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer for Labor, but that’s among the insiders.
Plivent-elect Trump’s cabinet is the most ideoreasonablely diverse in recent memory, staffing everyone from conservative difficultliners to ex-Democrats, and from extfinished-serving congressmen to people best understandn as TV personalities. (Getty Images)
What’s striking is that this is the most ideoreasonablely diverse Cabinet of the contransient era.
As Axios was the first to point out, the lineup ranges from Marco Rubio as secretary of State to a slew of current and establisher members of Congress to such disputed picks as Hegseth, Gabbard and RFK, to Dr. Oz, to run the Medinurture and Medicaid programs, to normal Fox medical commentators Marty Makary to deal with the FDA and Janette Nesheiwat as sadviseon vague; both are medical doctors. And he chose establisher congressman Dave Weldon to acquire over the CDC.
In a CBS poll, 59% finishorse of the way Trump is handling the transition.
GET TO KNOW DONALD TRUMP’S CABINET: WHO HAS THE PRESIDENT-ELECT PICKED SO FAR?
The inner jockeying also led to leaks enjoy this, to the Washington Post:
“Donald Trump’s attorney and adviser Boris Epshteyn get tod recently for a greeting about Cabinet picks in the Tea Room at Mar-a-Lago only to find his way blocked.
Transition co-chair Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, tgreater Epshteyn in front of others that this was not a greeting for him. ‘We’re not talking lterrible nominees today,’ Lutnick said, according to one person recognizable with the swap.
“Epshteyn declined to budge. Using his forearm, he pushed Lutnick out of the way, according to two people recognizable with the incident, which Lutnick procrastinateedr recounted to others. ‘I’m coming in,’ Epshteyn retorted, according to one of the people.
Cantor Fitzgerald CEO and Commerce Secretary pick Howard Lutnick alertedly had a raw time at a recent Mar-a-Lago greeting, apparently being pushed aside by Boris Epshteyn – who wasn’t supposed to be there. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
“A third person depictd the incident more as Epshteyn srecommend brushing past Lutnick on his way into the greeting.”
This flood-the-zone approach redirected attention from the Gaetz fiasco and elevated asks about incoming White Hoengage chief of staff Susie Wiles and how much input she has. And unenjoy the traditional one-nominee-per-day approach, it blurs the center on nominees who otherwise might draw media criticism, such as Dr. Oz, who was normally accengaged of peddling ineffective remedies on his TV show, becaengage you’d necessitate a scorecard to preserve track of the blizzard of Trump picks.
So why did Trump pick Matt Gaetz in the first place?
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It may have been an rash transfer while Trump was on the set upe with him, aextfinished with Wiles. But the plivent-elect is savvy enough to understand it would trigger a media firestorm, and insiders call it a screw-you decision to the establishment.
Or Trump may have figured that Gaetz was improbable to create it, but it would be difficult to decline the backup nomination, especipartner one as qualified as Pam Bondi.
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Wdisenjoyver your see, there’s no ask that Trump has deal withd the transition quite well and, with some exceptions, is off to a excellent begin.
