The Gaetz Problem

And what it could cost Trump

The Matt Gaetz nomination for Attorney General is not going well, with the House Ethics Committee meeting on Wednesday to decide what to do with the investigative report about him — a report which apparently contains all sorts of nasty stuff.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is apparently calling Senators to lobby for Gaetz to be confirmed. This is, to perhaps state the obvious, not what presidents-elect do when confirmation is assured. `

James Fallows asks:

Quiz for those who've lived or worked in DC. Or in any organization.

—Starting point: Members of the House Ethics Committee, ten in all—5R, 5D—now have the report on Matt Gaetz.

—Quiz: Will details be in the press before Thanksgiving, 10 days from now? Or after that?

My bet: Before.

So two things.

One is that in a normal party with a normal president-election…wait, hold on. A normal president-elect doesn’t nominate someone for his cabinet (much less Attorney General!) who has a major scandal over his head. And lots of enemies from his own party in Congress. Oh, and not much in the way of qualifications for the job, either.

So let me rephrase that: A normal party, forced to contend with this ridiculous situation, would want to publish or at least leak that report as quickly as possible.¹ If it’s actually somehow not as bad as everyone suspects, they’re obviously better off with it public. But let’s say it’s that bad, or even worse. Getting the information out now protects Republican Senators and the president-elect himself from getting blindsided by the revelations, in the very likely event they come out eventually.²

Perhaps, when the story is out, they choose to press on regardless, deciding that by January they can refer to the whole thing as old news that their Democratic and media enemies just won’t let go. Sure, that doesn’t actually make sense, but it doesn’t have to make sense for Gaetz to be confirmed. He just has to get 50 votes plus the vice-president. And within the conservative closed-information feedback loop, it will seem totally normal. That still wouldn’t make it popular — remember, “popular among Trump’s strongest supporters” still leaves some two-thirds of the nation who might not like something. But maybe Senate Republicans decide to live with that.

Or perhaps they choose to sink the nomination, as they obviously should if what’s been reported is true. Better for Trump and Senate Republicans to do that now than to wait until January.

Especially since if there’s one story line that media outlets always love it’s the existence of a secret report (supposedly) full of salacious detail that no one will make public. That story doesn’t go away.

So, yes, it’s pretty obviously good for Republicans at this point to get the information out. Especially since the Democrats are going to see that report as well, and if it remains secret then the Democrats will have the opportunity to drip-drip-drip leak out details. Or at least stoke rumors.

The other thing: I’ve been a long-time advocate of reduced vetting for executive branch nominations. Getting confirmed for one of these positions has become a grueling ordeal even if everything goes perfectly, given the complex disclosure that’s required of everyone. The benefit of preventing a scandal or even an actually corrupt nominee isn’t worth the huge cost imposed on every potential nominee — including those who choose not to seek government positions because the vetting process is too demanding.

And yet…it’s one thing to spend relatively less effort vetting mid- and lower-level nominees. It’s another to apparently do no vetting at all for the Attorney General nominee. (Or, for that matter, the selection for Secretary of Defense).

The truth is that when Trump at this point calls Republican Senators asking for their vote, he’s clearly not in any position to answer their obvious question: Is another shoe going to drop? Indeed, as far as we can tell the transition team can’t answer that question. Which makes it difficult to know how to proceed.

I still have no prediction for how this plays out. But judging from Tuesday’s Washington Post story, it’s already killing off Trump’s honeymoon with the neutral press. And I have been predicting that the longer multiple nominations continue to generate negative stories, the more likely it becomes a “Trump doing badly” story rather than a Gaetz (or RFK Jr., etc.) story.

And yes, that does matter. Trump, with a plurality in the total vote and a fairly solid electoral college majority, stood to get a healthy bounce in his popularity. He may well be squandering that in record time. Of course that doesn’t mean that his party will suddenly turn on him…but at the margins, Republican in Congress and elsewhere will be more willing to follow him if he’s popular, and Democrats at the margins will be more eager to oppose him if he’s unpopular.

It’s not just popularity; Trump’s professional reputation was awful during his first term, which made it easier for Congress, the bureaucracy, and others to repeatedly roll him. Starting off looking inept is a good way to remind everyone about that.

But I’ll save more about that for another day.

1. Assuming, that is, that the best solution — getting Gaetz to withdraw without anything going public — is not available

2. House Republicans, too; they don’t have to vote on executive branch nominations, but they’re going to be asked as long as it’s a major story.