Could Matt Gaetz Return to Congress? Here’s What He Says

Scandal-ridden former representative and failed attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz has pledged not to rejoin Congress. We can all only hope he keeps that promise.

In an appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show on Friday, Gaetz told the right-wing shill that he will be fighting for President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda “from a new perch.”

“I do not intend to join the 119th Congress,” Gaetz said. “There are a number of fantastic Floridians who’ve stepped up to run for my seat, people who have inspired with their heroism, with their public service. And I’m actually excited to see northwest Florida go to new heights and have great representation.”

Gaetz resigned from the 118th Congress days before a House Ethics Committee was set to wrap up its probe into allegations that he trafficked and had sex with a 17-year-old girl at a sex party. Gaetz fervently denied the allegations, even resigning from Congress last week as evidence piled up. While the probe has still yet to be released, the House Ethics Committee reportedly obtained documents that showed Gaetz’s payment to the 17-year-old girl on Venmo. Multiple Senate Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, said they had qualms with Gaetz’s nomination, and Gaetz finally announced he would not pursue the attorney general nomination after CNN reported the House Ethics Committee somehow had even more evidence against him.

Gaetz is still eligible to serve in the 119th Congress, even though he told Kirk he won’t. He could still run to be reelected to his own seat or hope that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appoints him to take Marco Rubio’s spot as senator after Trump nominated Rubio for secretary of state.

Trump has pegged his loyalist former impeachment hearing attorney Pam Bondi as Gaetz’s replacement for attorney general. And in Florida, a woman equally strange and bigoted as Gaetz—Michelle Salzman—is set to run for his open seat.

Tucker Carlson says he tried to get House Speaker Mike Johnson to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin before approving more aid to help Ukraine.

In Wednesday’s episode of The Tucker Carlson Show podcast, the titular host and his guest Glenn Greenwald lamented a lack of communication between the United States and Russia post–2020 presidential election. In general, they blamed the Democrats, who chilled relations after it became apparent that Russia had meddled on Donald Trump’s behalf.

“But it’s the leadership of the Republican Party too,” Carlson said.

“I had a conversation with the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, and he was about to appropriate tens of billions more for Ukraine, and I said, ‘Well, why don’t you check with Putin? You’re the speaker of the House, you’re number three in line for the presidency—well what, I’ll see if I can facilitate that? I’ll call the press office, kind of set you up, why don’t you talk to Putin?’”

Much to Carlson’s surprise, Johnson refused.

“I mean I’m not attacking Mike Johnson—I guess I am attacking Mike Johnson—I don’t know what I’m saying, I’m just reporting what actually happened,” Carlson ranted. “Don’t you have a moral duty to get as much information about this war before you fund its continuation and the killing of all these people? Like, shouldn’t you know more?”

It’s unclear exactly when this exchange occurred, though Johnson helped secure bipartisan House support in April to pass $6.1 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

Carlson seems to think Johnson ought to run his governing decisions past a foreign autocrat before making decisions for the American people—and should speak to the leader carrying out the deadly incursion into another state before deciding to send aid there.

Greenwald piped up to say that it would’ve been bad press for Johnson if it had gotten out, but that he “should want to understand the Russian perspective” on its own invasion.

Carlson, a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, has long pushed his distinctly pro-Russian views. He’s downplayed the country’s conflict with Ukraine and promoted a Russian-based conspiracy theory that the U.S. was plotting to supply Ukraine with bioweapons.

(It’s worth noting that Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s nominee to head up national intelligence, said something similar.)

Carlson appears regularly on Russian state television and once conducted his own televised interview with Putin, during which the Russian president openly mocked him for just what a propaganda tool he had become. Soon he’ll have the ear of the acting president of the United States, who seems more than willing to seek Putin’s approval too.

Representative Nancy Mace’s latest attention grab has gifted the world something it never asked for: bathroom-themed merch.

The South Carolina Republican has spent the majority of her week advancing a bill with the aim of banning one person from using toilets on Capitol Hill: Representative-elect Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person to be elected to Congress.

“The Left wants to NORMALIZE balls in women’s stalls. Hell no. I’m NOT backing down,” Mace—who said she supported LGBTQ rights as recently as 2021—wrote on X Thursday night. “Every purchase will help FUEL MY FIGHT to protect women and girls across America. HOLD THE LINE!”

But it’s hard to imagine who would be attracted to Mace’s debut clothing line, which brazenly feature the women’s bathroom logo alongside the text “Come and take it”—a tag line that sounds more akin to an invitation for sexual assault than an alleged mission to thwart it.

Statistically speaking, the threat that transgender people pose to the sanctity of public restrooms is zilch. A 2018 study from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that bathroom-related nondiscrimination laws pose practically no risk to women, and that claims to the contrary are little more than myths that are “not empirically grounded.”

Even Mace’s own ex-staffers have gone nuclear on her over the transphobic stunt on McBride. On Wednesday, the lawmaker’s former communications director Natalie Johnson said that Mace’s attacks on McBride were little more than a “ploy to get on Fox.”

“Tweeting 262 times about a bill that applies to like .00000001% of Congress in 36 hours is definitely about protecting women. It’s certainly not just a ploy for media attention,” Johnson tweeted.

The attention-seeking congresswoman has openly acknowledged that the stunt is a direct attack on McBride, telling reporters on Monday that it was “that and more.”

“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” Mace said, adding that the newly elected Delaware congresswoman “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop.”

In another interview, Mace claimed that the mere thought of a trans woman walking into a women’s locker room “feels like assault.”

But the whole charade appears especially hollow in light of the fact that Mace and McBride both have private bathrooms in their offices. The only people that the bill will actually hurt will be the nonelected trans employees of the U.S. Capitol complex, who apparently have—until now—been using the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity with no issue.

Donald Trump is upset with the media for accurately reporting that his election night victory wasn’t exactly a “landslide.”

Trump transition team spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Friday took aim at Politico and The New York Times for reporting on the fact that President-elect Trump didn’t win the popular vote by some resounding majority.

“New Fake News Narrative Alert!” Leavitt posted on X. “Here are the ridiculous headlines from @politico and @nytimes this morning. The fake news is trying to minimize President Trump’s massive and historic victory to try to delegitimize his mandate before he even takes the Oath of Office again.”

It’s no surprise that Trump and his team are fuming: Since November 5, Trump’s margin of victory has narrowed considerably. As of the vote count Friday morning, Trump only won against Vice President Kamala Harris by 1.6 points, and failed to secure more than 50 percent of the popular vote. Hillary Clinton managed to beat Trump by a larger margin in 2016 than Trump did over Harris in 2024.

Trump and his supporters have been pushing the landslide narrative ever since he defeated Harris. “We had a great election in the U.S.… Amazing what happened, we had tremendous success. The most successful in over 100 years they say,” he told Fox News last week. Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung claimed that “President Trump won in dominating and historic fashion after the Democrats and the fake news media peddled outright lies and disinformation throughout the campaign.” And Republicans throughout Congress have claimed the same.

Trump likes the landslide narrative, true or not (not), because he thinks it gives him more ground to stand on for his insane agenda. But his mandate is much weaker than he’d have you believe.

The sentencing for Donald Trump’s conviction in his hush-money trial has been canceled indefinitely.

Judge Juan Merchan of the Supreme Court of the State of New York on Friday granted Trump’s application for a stay of sentencing, meaning the president-elect will not face justice anytime soon for his only criminal conviction, on 34 felony counts.

Trump has argued that the entire case should be thrown out after the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, and this decision is a step in that direction. But, Merchan has made no mention of throwing out his felony convictions, and the Manhattan district attorney’s office seems to be waiting out the president-elect’s four-year term and then revisiting sentencing.

The charges came from Trump making $130,000 in hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up their affair before the 2016 election through his then-fixer, Michael Cohen. A jury found the president-elect guilty in May, making it the first and only time a former president was successfully prosecuted on criminal charges.

At one time, Trump was facing three other indictments—one related to election interference in Georgia, a federal election interference case related to January 6, and his mishandling of classified documents. But now, they’re all moot until he’s done with his second term as president, as his strategy to delay his cases and win the election worked almost perfectly.

This story has been updated.