Trump Goes Full Dictator in Latest Threat to GOP Senators

Matt Gaetz may be out of the running for attorney general, but Donald Trump still has plenty of horrific nominees he’s trying to push through Senate confirmation—and he’s threatening to unseat any Republican that gets in his way.

Trump, JD Vance, and their transition team have been “playing hard ball” as they try to garner support for the president-elect’s nightmare slate of Cabinet nominees, according to ABC News’s Selina Wang.

One Trump adviser told ABC News’s Jonathan Karl that the message to Republican senators had been, “If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary. That is all. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it.”

“The president gets to decide his Cabinet, no one else” the adviser added.

The Trump team’s newest threat makes it clear: No dissent among Republicans will be tolerated under the Trump administration. Technocrat billionaire Musk’s super PAC helped to fund Trump’s successful presidential run, and he could continue to fund challenges against any of the vulnerable Senate Republicans not willing to get in line behind the president-elect.

Gaetz withdrew his nomination Thursday less than an hour after he was notified that CNN was planning to report that the House Ethics Committee had heard testimony about a second alleged sexual encounter between the Florida Republican and a 17-year-old girl.

Still, Trump and his team are working to push through his other nominees who are allegedly sexual predators, such as Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth, who is embroiled in a rape allegation from 2017 that he seemingly kept from the Trump team, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who allegedly sexually assaulted his children’s former babysitter two decades ago.

Donald Trump is taking fresh aim at the press before he is sworn in for his second term, asking Republicans to block a federal shield bill that would protect journalists from federal investigators. 

The New York Times reports that the president-elect attacked the bill Wednesday afternoon in a Truth Social post in which he cited a news article, writing “REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL!” The measure in question is the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying Act, or PRESS Act. 

The PRESS Act previously received unanimous, bipartisan approval by the House in January, but has since stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee as Democrats in the upper chamber rush to approve President Biden’s judicial nominees before he leaves office and the GOP takes over the chamber next year. 

The bill would provide reporters with stronger protections regarding confidential sources, protecting them against prosecution. In his first term, Trump’s routine anger over leaks from his administration led to him secretly subpoenaing reporters’ private communications. Bipartisan support for the measure was probably fueled by the fact that attacks on journalists have, in recent years, been a bipartisan problem. 

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, left his own checkered legacy on press freedom behind—the former president routinely deployed the Espionage Act to put “a number of people in jail for daring to help national security journalists report on classified government programs.”

President Joe Biden took a different tack. His attorney general, Merrick Garland, issued a Justice Department rule banning federal prosecutors from using such practices, including search warrants, to seize journalists’ information or force them to testify about their sources. But since the Biden administration’s actions could easily be overturned by a future administration, the PRESS Act was written to erect sturdier safeguards. 

But Trump has always been extremely hostile towards journalists, and his 2024 presidential campaign was no exception. He threatened news networks such as ABC and CBS with removing their broadcast licenses for what he considered unfavorable treatment and coverage. He joked to a rally audience in Pennsylvania only days before the election about a potential assassin having “to shoot through the fake news,  and I don’t mind that so much because I don’t mind. I don’t mind that.” 

Since at least 2017, Trump has called the press “the enemy of the people,” and when he is sworn in next year, he’ll have a pliant Congress behind him to treat the press as the enemy of the state. If passed, the PRESS Act might have protected at least some journalists from legal action under Trump’s second administration, but now it might be too late. 

On top of everything that’s gone wrong for Democrats in November, Anthony Weiner is mulling making a political comeback.

The New York Times is reporting that the registered sex offender and repeatedly-shamed former New York congressman has floated a return to his once thriving political career, despite the known existence of an incalculable number of New Yorkers who might currently be better suited to hold literally any elected office. Weiner used a recent barbershop interview with failed Republican state comptroller candidate Jonathan Trichter to test these waters. 

“I got removed from society. That happened. I was removed from society for 18 months and five days, and for years I have lived as a civilian in this neighborhood,” Weiner said, strategically deploying the passive voice as he discussed the matter during his haircut. “Maybe this campaign will be an opportunity for me to engage those people, even if they do not like what I did.”

A reminder: That whole “what Weiner did” thing was getting caught for sexting lewd images to women and an underage girl over and over again. In 2011 he accidentally posted his bulge showing through his underwear publicly on his Twitter timeline, and then denied doing that for days before finally resigning from Congress. More sexual messages to a 22-year-old woman were exposed during his New York City mayoral campaign in 2013. He was caught sexting another woman and a 15-year-old girl in 2016. Weiner surrendered to the FBI in 2017 and was found guilty of “transferring obscene materials to a minor.” He spent almost two years in prison.  

Weiner’s inability to keep his rampaging libido in check may have world-historical ramifications, as many argue that his sexting scandal was a critical domino to fall in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 email-server fallout. Emails regarding Hillary Clinton’s controversy were found on Weiner’s laptop that he used for sexting. Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, was vice chair of Clinton’s campaign, leading former FBI Director James Comey to reopen investigations into Clinton just days before the 2016 election. Many within the party blame Comey’s decision, initiated by Weiner’s own vile desires, for Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump. 

Today, Weiner is eyeing a seat back at where it all started—the New York City Council. But other candidates in his district, which covers Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side, aren’t exactly enthusiastic about Weiner’s triumphant return to politics. “Everyone deserves a second chance, but this guy has had third, fourth and fifth chances,” council candidate Sarah Batchu said. 

Another candidate, Andrea Gordillo, offered scathing remarks of her own. “Families in Lower Manhattan deserve better than failed New York and Washington politicians using our moment of need for their own political comeback.” 

The Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act would allow the secretary of the treasury, a Cabinet position appointed by the president, to revoke a nonprofit organization’s tax-exempt status by labeling it as “terrorist-supporting.” It passed by a vote of 219–184, mostly along party lines.

With the incoming Trump administration broadly vowing to take vengeance against “enemies within,” the successful passage of this bill would place a wide array of organizations vital to Democratic organizing and policymaking in the president-elect’s direct line of fire. It is supremely puzzling, then, that this bill received bipartisan support.

Last week, the same bill failed to advance out of the House because it failed to garner the two-thirds majority needed to pass during a suspension of the lower chamber’s rules. It was subsequently sent back to committee and retooled for a simple majority vote. While 52 Democrats voted for the bill previously, enormous pressure was applied to get those who backed the bill last week to come out against it on Thursday. This time, 15 of them voted along with every single Republican for the bill, which would have a chilling effect on free speech.

The bill’s original intention was to aid in the clamping down on pro-Palestinian protesters, particularly those on college campuses—a dubious undertaking given both the First Amendment rights enjoyed by all under the Constitution as well as a slew of other statutes that already make it illegal to provide material support to terrorist organizations.

However, the reelection of Trump casts this measure in a new light. His promise to turn the civil service into an engine of personal vengeance should be sufficient evidence that he’d likely abuse the powers granted under H.R. 9495, potentially allowing the president to target fairly well-known liberal organizations, such as the Center for American Progress, with punishing sanctions that would prevent such outfits from raising or banking money—penalties which, under the proposed law, such sanctioned organizations would be barred from pursuing legal recourse to plead their case. Moreover, in addition to activist groups, many universities and news outlets are nonprofit organizations.

While significantly lower than the 52 members who joined in last week’s vote to advance the bill, 15 Democrats is still a surprising number of representatives who seem to care more about wanting to neutralize irksome protesters than a fascist, authoritarian president targeting any nonprofit he doesn’t like.

Here’s a full list of Democrats who voted for the bill:

• Colin Allred—Texas
• Yadira D. Caraveo—Colorado
• Ed Case—Hawaii
• Henry Cuellar—Texas
• Don Davis—North Carolina
• Jared Golden—Maine
• Vicente Gonzalez—Texas
• Suzanne Marie Lee—Nevada
• Jared Moskowitz—Florida
• Jimmy Panetta—California
• Marie Gluesenkamp Perez—Washington
• Brad Schneider—Illinois
• Tom Suozzi—New York
• Norma Torres—California
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz—Florida

It is obviously unlikely that President Joe Biden will sign this bill into law. The same cannot be said for the president-elect, who will have majorities in both chambers sufficient to bring this bill to his desk, barring a willingness among Senate Democrats to filibuster the measure. Whether these 15 Democrats will join a later effort to give Trump the power to eliminate nonprofits critical to the electoral success of their own party remains to be seen.

* This article originally identified Representative Ritchie Torres as one of the Democrats to vote “yes” on Thursday’s vote. He was one of the 52 to vote “yes” on the November 12 vote under suspension.

The Justice Department’s three-year investigation into Matt Gaetz uncovered a web of payments to women who testified they were paid for sex by the ex-Florida lawmaker.

Gaetz sent roughly $10,000 to at least two women who were involved in sex parties he attended between 2017 and 2020, according to the document obtained by The New York Times.

The 42-year-old Floridian—who on Thursday dropped out of the running as Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general—has faced two federal investigations in recent years related to sex trafficking allegations as well as claims that he had sex with an underage girl. The Justice Department’s investigation fizzled out in 2023, resulting in no formal charges against Gaetz (although this does not indicate his innocence, as Gaetz has claimed). Meanwhile, a House Ethics Committee probe into the controversial politico was crushed last week when Gaetz suddenly resigned from his House position following his nomination to lead the Justice Department.

Among the individuals who indirectly received payments from Gaetz was a 17-year-old girl, according to the document.

An attorney representing the two women told lawmakers that Gaetz issued payments using Venmo, while one of the women testified that she personally saw Gaetz having sex with a minor at a party in 2017.

In February, a woman involved in the House Ethics Committee investigation said that she received payments to attend multiple sex parties with people in Gaetz’s circle. While testifying under subpoena to U.S. attorneys investigating Gaetz in 2021, the unidentified woman handed over texts, photographs, and other evidence, according to her attorney.

The woman’s name appeared across several Venmo transactions, tallying up nearly $2,500 between March and July 2017 through Gaetz’s former friend Joel Greenberg, who was later convicted of sex trafficking an underage girl.

The woman’s decision to speak out and come forward was an arduous and taxing one, according to her attorney. In the spring of 2021, a Gaetz associate allegedly berated her over whether she had spoken to anyone investigating the Floridian—a tactic that she interpreted as a pressure campaign to keep her quiet. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

The accusations against Gaetz came to light during a DOJ investigation into Greenberg, a former tax collector for Seminole County, Florida. The initial probe also named Gaetz, who Greenberg claimed had paid him via Venmo in order to have sex with an underage girl in 2017.

Eight months after Greenberg warned Gaetz to “steer clear” of the girl, the lawmaker Venmo’d Greenberg $900 in back-to-back payments, per The Daily Beast, telling the taxman to “hit up” the girl on his behalf. At that point, she was five months past her 18th birthday, while Gaetz had just turned 36.

“This purposeful leaking of classified investigative materials is the sort of politicized D.O.J. weaponization that Matt Gaetz will end,” Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, told the Times when asked about the payment chart. “The Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years, failed to find a crime and are now leaking material with false information to smear the next attorney general.”

This story has been updated.