Cassidy Hutchinson Casually Destroys Matt Gaetz Over Bizarre Rumor He Started

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson delivered a truly sick burn to Representative Matt Gaetz after he tried to claim the two of them had dated.

Hutchinson worked as the top assistant to Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, and she eventually became a star witness for the House January 6 investigative committee. She has dropped multiple bombshells about the Trump administration in recent weeks from her new book, Enough.

In a Monday night interview on MSNBC, host Rachel Maddow read a few excerpts from the book that detail how Gaetz aggressively pursued Hutchinson. One line describes how he stroked her face while talking to her. Another passage says he tried so hard to hook up with her during a trip to Camp David that Representative Kevin McCarthy actually told Gaetz to “get a life.” Hutchinson also alleges elsewhere in the book that Gaetz groped her on two different occasions.

Gaetz denied Hutchinson’s claims in a statement to Maddow, but he said the pair “did date … for a few weeks years ago when we were both single.”

“Matt Gaetz, in my opinion, is somebody that I personally do not hold in high regard in terms of trust,” Hutchinson said. “I will say, on behalf of myself, I never dated Matt Gaetz. I have much higher standards in men. And Matt, frankly, is a very unserious politician.”

“We see that today, with the ruckus that he is causing on Capitol Hill with the spending negotiations.”

Gaetz, a key Trump ally, is also one of the main opponents of passing a clean continuing resolution that will keep the government open and functioning. Instead, he keeps threatening to remove McCarthy from the speakership.

Hutchinson’s book also describes a chilling interaction with Rudy Giuliani. She accuses Giuliani of groping her just before Trump’s speech on January 6.

Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday completely—and hilariously—destroyed one of Republicans’ main arguments to prove that Joe Biden is corrupt.

Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden, after months of insisting that the president is guilty of criminal wrongdoing. The GOP has yet to produce any actual evidence of their claims. But one of their main talking points is that Poroshenko fired former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin after Biden pressured him to do so.

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade played Poroshenko a clip of Shokin saying Biden wanted him fired because he had been investigating the oil company Burisma Holdings while Hunter Biden served on the board.

“First of all, this is [a] completely crazy person,” Poroshenko replied without hesitation, referring to Shokin. “This is something wrong with him. Second, there is not one single word of truth.”

“Please do not use such a person like Shokin to undermine the trust we feel” from both U.S. parties, he continued.

Poroshenko added that Shokin was fired because “he played very dirty games.”

Shokin was fired in 2016 for corruption. Three years later, Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani started a conspiracy theory that the Biden family accepted a $10 million bribe to remove Shokin to stop a probe into Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma. This claim has been repeatedly debunked by the owner of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, as well as Giuliani’s associate Lev Parnas. And now, the former Ukrainian president himself.

New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez has an insanely lame excuse for the $480,000 in cash federal investigators discovered at his home.

Last week, Menendez and his wife were indicted on federal bribery charges. The indictment accuses Menendez of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars, and “luxury vehicle and home furnishings.”

In exchange for the bribes, Menendez, who is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agreed to use his power to boost three New Jersey businessmen and benefit the government of Egypt, according to the indictment.

At a press conference Monday morning, Menendez said that the $480,000 investigators discovered in his house was money he’d withdrawn in case of an emergency.

“For 30 years, I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings account, which I have kept for emergencies,” Menedez said, making no mention of the gold bars that were also discovered in his home and are worth an additional estimated $155,000.

Menendez said that he was compelled to do this because of his family’s history “facing confiscation in Cuba.” It’s unclear to which family Menendez—who was born in New York City in 1954, a full five years before the Castros came to power—is referring.

“This may seem old-fashioned, but these were monies drawn from my personal account based on the income I have lawfully derived over those 30 years,” Menendez added. Menendez’s excuse doesn’t seem “old-fashioned,” it just seems like a lie.

In his press conference remarks, Menendez made it clear he had no intention of resigning, and so far, no Democratic senators have publicly called for him to step down.

While some right-wing fanatics have speculated that this indictment was drummed up to create the illusion of an impartial Department of Justice, it’s doubtful that Menendez, who was previously indicted on similar charges in 2015, will get off scot-free this time.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, one of the few Republicans to repeatedly condemn Donald Trump’s claim of 2020 election fraud, has caved and said he will back the former president in 2024.

Kemp has held the line that the Georgia presidential election was valid, despite repeated Trump attacks. He was also one of the few Republicans to back the legitimacy of the indictment against Trump for trying to overturn the state’s election. But in an interview published Sunday with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kemp finally broke.

“It has nothing to do with being a coward,” Kemp insisted, on why he’d back Trump if he is the Republican nominee in 2024. “It has everything to do with winning and reversing the ridiculous, obscene positions of Joe Biden and this administration that literally, in a lot of ways, are destroying our country.”

“Despite all of his other trials and tribulations, [Trump] would still be a lot better than Biden,” Kemp said. “And the people serving in the administration would be a lot better than Joe Biden.”

Kemp hinted last month that he would back whoever wins the Republican presidential nomination, tweeting, “2024 is too important for political games.” But this is the first time he has openly expressed support for Trump.

This shift likely does have personal reasons, though. Trump has already gone after Kemp’s position. In 2021, he got former Senator David Perdue to run against Kemp for governor. Perdue is a loyal MAGA Republican who has backed Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Kemp was reelected in a landslide, but Perdue’s campaign shows just a fraction of how far Trump is willing to go to get revenge on people who oppose him. If Trump is the nominee, his already outsize influence in the Republican Party will only grow—and Kemp could be in big trouble if he doesn’t fall in line.

Donald Trump went over the edge over the weekend and began calling for his detractors to be prosecuted or even put to death.

“They are almost all dishonest and corrupt, but Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC, often and correctly referred to as MSDNC (Democrat National Committee!), should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason,’” he wrote on Truth Social Sunday night.

“I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States … the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events,” he said. “They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!”

Trump has never been a fan of news outlets that give him the slightest bit of negative or unbiased coverage. He even turned on his once-favorite Fox News after the network confirmed Arizona voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

But the fact that he is threatening to censor news outlets through federal regulatory powers is terrifying, not to mention a huge violation of the Constitution.

Trump’s threat to the news media was actually his second attempt to menace detractors this past weekend alone. On Friday, he slammed Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggesting that perhaps he also committed treason.

“This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” Trump said on Truth Social. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

Trump was referring to two phone calls Milley made to Beijing, one during Trump’s last months in office and the second in the aftermath of the January 6 riot. The calls, which were to assure China that Trump was not planning to attack the country, were done at the direction of other Trump administration officials.

Trump, of course, appointed Milley to his role in 2018—but since then has repeatedly lashed out at the general. His Friday comments came after The Atlantic published a profile of Milley that described how he “protected the Constitution from Donald Trump.”

It should go without saying, but Trump making comments like this is incredibly dangerous. His followers have shown themselves quick to spring to action. Hundreds of January 6 defendants have said they descended on Washington because Trump personally called on them.

Republican lawmakers too quickly follow the former president’s commands. Another Trump supporter, Arizona Representative Paul Gosar, has also called for Milley to face death. In his newsletter Sunday, Gosar baselessly claimed that Milley and then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had worked to delay the National Guard’s response to the January 6 riot, to make Trump look bad.

“In a better society … General Milley would be hung,” Gosar wrote. “How this traitor remains in office is a question we need answered.”

(If it’s any consolation for Gosar, Milley retires on October 1.)

Gosar has shown himself remarkably willing to take up Trump’s call, even on the most extreme behavior. In December, Gosar posted on X, then called Twitter, backing Trump’s call to terminate the U.S. Constitution and overturn the 2020 election. He deleted the post an hour later, after it sparked backlash.