Fox News Responds to Report on Matt Gaetz’s Future: ‘We Have No Interest in Hiring Him’
Before the news of a DOJ investigation into whether he had a relationship with a 17-year-old broke on Tuesday, Congressman Matt Gaetz was getting attention for an Axios report saying he has plans to move from the House of Representatives to a media job.
As Axios reported, Gaetz has told people he’s “seriously considering not seeking re-election and possibly leaving Congress early for a job at Newsmax.”
On Wednesday, amid the stunning news about the DOJ probe and his allegations of an extortion scheme and smear campaign, Gaetz told The Daily Beast he’s had “many conversations with many people about life after Congress,” saying he’s “talked to either executives, producers or hosts at Newsmax, OAN, Fox, Fox Business, Real America’s Voice and probably others I’m forgetting in this moment as I focus intently on refuting false accusations against me.”
The Daily Beast report says that Gaetz made his interest known to OANN in particular.
In a statement to Mediaite on the report, a Fox News spokesperson said, “No one with any level of authority has had conversations with Matt Gaetz for any of our platforms and we have no interest in hiring him.”
Gaetz appeared on Fox Tuesday night and repeatedly stunned Tucker Carlson in an interview that took him aback so much he told viewers it was “one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted.”
At one point in the interview Gaetz told Carlson, “I’m not the only person on screen right now whose been falsely accused of a terrible sex act.” At another point Gaetz brought up a dinner he said they had a few years ago with Carlson’s wife and a friend of the congressman’s, but Carlson said in response, “I don’t remember the woman you’re speaking of or the context at all, honestly.”
OAN founder/CEO Robert Herring spoke to Daily Beast for its report and said, “Somebody did call me and say that Congressman Gaetz might be looking for a job, possibly at Newsmax… I think he is a great congressman, and I told [that ‘somebody’] to tell him to stay there. That’s what I want Congressman Gaetz to do.”
