Trump Sexual Misconduct-Accused Picks Will Make Kavanaugh Hearings ‘Look Like Child’s Play’ Says Politico’s Bade

Politico’s Rachel Bade said the confirmations of Pete Hegseth and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet will make Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s hearings “look like child’s play.”

The selection ofGaetz to be Trump’s attorney general was met with near-universal shock Wednesday for many reasons, not the least of which is the cloud of scandal that saw Gaetz resign just in time to head off the publication of a House Ethics Committee report investigating, among other things, “sexual misconduct.”

Hegseth is also facing scrutiny over a resurfaced sexual assault allegation

On Sunday’s edition of ABC’s This Week, host Martha Raddatz asked her panel about Trump’s nominees, and Bade raised the specter of the wild Kavanaugh hearings:

RADDATZ: And, Alex, do you see any overreach here on Donald Trump’s part, especially some of those nominees of Matt Gaetz for instance?

ALEX BURNS: Well, we’re going to find out. And to Reince’s point about the feeling in Florida that they have a mandate, every president who comes in with united control of Congress, which has been every president in my lifetime except for one, feels that they have a mandate. And then we see what happens when you actually try to put your people and your policies up for a vote, right? Joe Biden felt he had a mandate to be the new FDR. We all know how that ended, right? George W. Bush, when he was re-elected, felt he had a mandate to reshape Social Security. We all know how that ended.

I’m not making any predictions here about how this one is going to end, but I do think we should see this selection of nominees as a decision to put that mandate to the test and to spend capital upfront on personnel. And it is worth, I think, just stepping back and taking stock. A president can only spend so much capital, can only have so many fights at one time.

BADE: And we’re going to see extremely explosive hearings at a time when Donald Trump is going to be wanting to advance, you know, tax cuts, put, you know, up new legislation potentially on the border in Congress. He’s going to be putting a lot of energy toward getting these people over the finish line. I mean you can imagine a situation where a lot of these women who have made these allegations against these candidates, you know, this woman who went to the House Ethics Committee and said that Gaetz had sex with her when she was a minor, this conservative woman who said that Pete Hegseth assaulted her at a conference. You can imagine a scenario where Democrats are pushing for them and wanting them to come to The Hill. And this is going to make the Brett Kavanaugh hearings sort of look like child’s play compared to what we’re going to see.

Watch above via ABC’s This Week.