Fox News Contributor Stunned by Matt Gaetz’s AG Nomination: ‘Wow… Trump Is Really Going for It’
In a move that shocked Washington, President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday he will nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as the next U.S. attorney general.
Gaetz has been a controversial figure since arriving in Congress in 2017. He is currently the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation looking into allegations including sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, improperly accepting gifts, and obstructing government probes of his conduct. The Department of Justice, which Gaetz would lead, investigated the allegations before declining to prosecute him last year.
Martha MacCallum broke the news to viewers of The Story on Fox News, where contributor Steve Hilton offered his reaction.
“The first reaction was wow,” Hilton declared. “President-elect Trump is really going for it. I mean, this is a very, very strong appointment.”
Hilton went on to call Gaetz “a bomb-thrower, politically” who is “very smart on policy.”
“I got to know that when I had him as a guest on my show over the years,” he continued. “And I remember the very first time he came to my show, we had him on for a particular topic, and during the break, I asked him about the next thing that we were gonna discuss. It was a completely unrelated topic. And he immediately came out with some incredibly smart policy-based observations that so impressive.”
The reaction on Capitol Hill was decidedly more mixed.
Asked for a response, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) replied, “Are you shittin’ me?”
Meanwhile, longtime Trump ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said though he is inclined to support the selection, he was “surprised” by it.
Gaetz earned the ire of many of his Republican colleagues in 2023 when he filed a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. That triggered a vote of the full House on whether to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) that was ultimately successful. McCarthy alleges the move was payback after he refused to quash the ethics investigation into Gaetz, who denied the accusation.
Watch above via Fox News.
