When he ran for US president in 2016, Donald Trump boasted that he would “surround myself only with the best and most serious people”, adding: “We want top-of-the-line professionals.”
Second time around, Trump appears to have quality control issues. On Thursday Matt Gaetz, his pick to be attorney general, withdrew from consideration amid allegations including sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl, drug use and misappropriating campaign funds.
It was Trump’s first notable setback since beating Kamala Harris in the election on 5 November. Choosing Gaetz, chronically under-qualified and plagued by scandal, to be America’s top law enforcement official was a spectacular error of judgment by the incoming commander-in-chief.
“Donald Trump just took his first step backward,” Steve Schmidt, a former Republican campaign consultant, wrote on X. “He will take many more soon. Very soon. Do Not Be Afraid.”
Florida congressman Gaetz had styled himself as a “Maga” bomb thrower, adopting the Trump playbook of riding out any scandal and turning the tables on his accusers. He vehemently denies the allegations and points out that a justice department investigation into sex-trafficking claims involving underage girls had ended with no federal charges against him.
The brazenness worked until it didn’t. The miasma of scandal that trailed Gaetz around Capitol Hill was too odorous. His unpopularity with colleagues was a bridge too far. Not even Trump’s patronage was enough to save his Senate confirmation. Finally, in a supposedly post-scandal era in which “nothing matters”, something mattered.
One theory is that Gaetz was a sacrificial lamb, a decoy that will ease the path of similarly outlandish selections such as the Russian sympathiser Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth (also accused of sexual assault) as defence secretary and anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary.
That probably credits the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president with too much guile and cunning. As a former White House official once observed, Trump does not play “the sort of three-dimensional chess people ascribe to decisions like this. More often than not he’s just eating the pieces.”
Not that anyone can be surprised. Less than a month after Trump’s first inauguration, his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to quit. Communications director Anthony Scaramucci lasted 11 days. About three-quarters of Trump’s initial cabinet picks were gone by the end of his four years in office – a record turnover rate.
Such chaos is priced in, it seems. Earlier this month voters showed they were apparently willing to overlook Trump’s managerial ineptitude so long as he brings down the price of eggs.
Indeed, the fall of Gaetz proves there is one rule for Trump and another for everyone else – even those clinging to his coattails. He has been caught on tape bragging about grabbing women by their private parts, accused of sexual assault by more than two dozen women and found liable by a jury for sexually abusing the columnist E Jean Carroll. None it will prevent him being sworn in as president on 20 January.
But those who try to emulate Teflon Trump often come unstuck. Trump won the swing state of North Carolina but the “Maga” candidate Mark Robinson – who had made comments on a porn website in which he called himself a “black NAZI” and recounted sexually graphic stories, including one about “peeping” on women in gym showers when he was 14 – went down in flames.
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Likewise Gaetz was overwhelmed by revelations and the threat of more to come. Earlier this week lawyer Joel Leppard said two women he represents told congressional investigators that Gaetz paid them for sex on multiple occasions beginning in 2017. One testified that she saw him having sex with a 17-year-old at a party in Florida in 2017.
After conversations with with senators and their staffs, the New York Times newspaper reported, Gaetz concluded that at least four Republican senators were “implacably opposed” to his nomination: Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John Curtis of Utah, who takes office in January.
McConnell, the outgoing Senate leader, has been part enabler, part nemesis of Trump for years (and is known to loathe him personally). Now it seems he is one of the last remaining guardrails for democracy, which will be reassuring to no one. America can breathe a sigh of relief at Gaetz’s demise but his replacement might be just as dangerous to the rule of law.
The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, posted on X: “If you think Gaetz is the worst, remember the deep bench of MAGA freaks Trump has left to choose from.”
If Thursday’s events prove anything, it is that The Trump Show – a reality TV series with jaw-dropping drama, kooky characters and a perpetual struggle between malevolence and incompetence – is back with a vengeance. As the Democratic senator John Fetterman told reporters: “Holy shit. I didn’t see that coming.”