Matt Gaetz Isn’t Done Causing us Pain After All

Former Representative Matt Gaetz is considering running for office again, just weeks after getting chased out of the last one. 

Gaetz, the Florida Republican who allegedly paid several women and an underage girl for sexual encounters, is “starting to think about running for governor” in 2026, he told The Tampa Bay Times Tuesday.

“I have a compelling vision for the state,” Gaetz said. “I understand how to fix the insurance problem, and it’s not to hand the keys to the state over to the insurance industry. If I run, I would be the most pro-consumer candidate on the Republican side.”

Last month, the House Ethics Committee published a long-awaited report on Gaetz’s alleged misconduct, and concluded that the MAGA acolyte “took advantage of the economic vulnerability of young women to lure them into sexual activity.” In total, he paid out more than $63,000 to more than a dozen women and one 17-year-old girl.  

Gaetz left Congress last year after he was nominated to serve as Donald Trump’s attorney general. Unfortunately for him, his candidacy was so unpopular he was forced to withdraw his nomination and was replaced by Pam Bondi, who is set to be confirmed next week. When he didn’t return for the start of the 119th Congress last week, his former colleagues clapped. 

Gaetz said the revelations about his behavior wouldn’t have any impact on a potential run for governor. “Those lies have been told about me for years,” Gaetz said. “They’ve never affected my ability to win elections.”

Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to intervene in his New York hush-money case.

The president-elect requested an administrative stay Wednesday on the sentencing for his sole criminal conviction, claiming that the high court’s July immunity ruling should prevent him from having to face consequences. Trump’s sentencing is currently scheduled for Friday.

A jury of his peers unanimously decided in May that Trump was guilty on all 34 counts for falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in the first degree.

Trump has skirted sentencing since July, leveraging the nation’s legal system to invoke delay after delay until now, when the clock could realistically run out on the case just 12 days before he is set to retake the White House.

But the stay—which will once again delay Trump’s sentencing—would only nix an already pared-down and toothless conviction.

Last week, Judge Juan Merchan dealt the final blow to any suggestions of serious consequences for the president-elect. Merchan wrote in his Friday order that “unconditional discharge” had become the “the most viable solution” for Trump, indicating that the incoming president would not be hampered down with fines, court-appointed supervision, or incarceration.

In the wake of Merchan’s order, former U.S. District Attorney Joyce Vance argued in her legal column Civil Discourse that there could still be a light at the end of the legal tunnel for Trump’s sentencing. Rather than forcing Trump to face the music before his inauguration, she argued that Merchan’s decision to release Trump with “unconditional discharge” could effectively take the wind out of Trump’s sails should he try to do away with the criminal conviction altogether. It would also help delay Trump’s sentencing until he’s out of office again, in which case, all bets are off.

It’s unclear if the Supreme Court will grant Trump’s request. As reporter Steven Mazie noted on X, “several justices will be so inclined,” but that doesn’t mean a majority will be.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump’s bid to halt sentencing for his felony conviction in his hush-money case in New York hit a setback Tuesday when a state appeals court denied his request.

The president-elect is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, barring a last-minute appeal in federal court, or even the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, Judge Ellen Gesmer listened to arguments in a brief court hearing before ruling against the president-elect 30 minutes later.

During the hearing, she asked Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche if he had “any support for a notion that presidential immunity extends to president-elects.”

“There has never been a case like this before,” Blanche replied, admitting that he did not have an answer. He tried to claim that sitting presidents had immunity, only for Gesmer to remind him that Trump was not yet president.

If Trump’s sentencing for his 34 felony convictions ultimately goes through, however, he will likely be spared jail time, the judge presiding over his case, Juan Merchan, signaled last week. Trump was accused of using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

But after the Supreme Court ruled in July that presidents have near-total immunity, the prospect of Trump facing any real consequences for his conviction basically evaporated. Trump’s election in November also didn’t help matters, and his other criminal cases never made it to trial before the Supreme Court and the election rendered them moot. Now, with less than two weeks left until Trump is sworn in as president, he might not even get a slap on the wrist.

Read Trump’s lips: No new windmills.

The president-elect took time out of his rambling press conference on Tuesday to remind everyone just how much disdain he has for popular, efficient energy alternatives.  

“They turn to garbage … the only people that want them are the people getting rich off windmills, getting massive subsidies from the U.S. government.… They’re many many times more expensive than clean natural gas,” Trump said. “We’re gonna try and have a policy where no windmills are being built.”

Regardless of what Trump says, demand for wind energy is increasing—especially in red states. Last year wind farms created 22 percent of electricity generated in Texas and 59 percent of electricity  produced in Iowa. It’s an expanding, low-cost industry that employs 125,000 people.  

But the president-elect chooses to create his own narratives rather than engage with reality. “You see what’s happening up in the Massachusetts area with the whales.… They had two whales wash ashore in a 17-year period, and now they have 14 this season,” Trump said at the same press conference. “The windmills are driving the whales crazy … obviously.”

There is no scientific evidence to support that claim. 

If a bill that the House of Representatives passed Tuesday becomes law, undocumented immigrants arrested for nonviolent crimes will be targeted for deportation.

The bill was named after Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student killed last year in Georgia by an undocumented immigrant who was arrested and charged with shoplifting but wasn’t detained. It passed in the House Tuesday by a 264–159 margin, with every Republican voting for it.

They were joined by 48 Democrats, despite the fact that the bill doesn’t require a conviction or charge, but merely an arrest, to target an undocumented immigrant. These Democrats appear to be supporting the GOP’s rhetoric demonizing all undocumented immigrants, seeking to penalize them merely for being suspected of a crime.

With Donald Trump’s promised mass deportations likely coming soon after his inauguration in less than two weeks, the 48 Democrats who voted for the Laken Riley Act appear to be surrendering early. Seven of them even voted against the bill in March, only to vote for it Tuesday. Here is the list of all 48 Democrats, with the seven who changed their votes in bold:

• Brendan Boyle—Pennsylvania
  
• Nikki Budzinski—Illinois
• Janelle Bynum—Oregon
• Jim Costa—California
• Joe Courtney—Connecticut
• Angie Craig—Minnesota
• Henry Cuellar—Texas
• Sharice Davids—Kansas
• Don Davis—North Carolina
• April McClain-Delaney—Maryland
• Chris Deluzio—Pennsylvania
• Shomari Figures—Alabama
• Laura Gillen—New York
• Marie Gluesenkamp Perez—Washington
• Jared Golden—Maine
• Vicente Gonzalez—Texas
• Maggie Goodlander—New Hampshire
• Adam Gray—California
• Josh Harder—California
• Jahana Hayes—Connecticut
• Steven Horsford—Nevada
• Val Hoyle—Oregon
• Marcy Kaptur—Ohio
• Greg Landsman—Ohio
• Susie Lee—Nevada
• Mike Levin—California
• Stephen F. Lynch—Massachusetts
• John Mannion—New York
• Lucy McBath—Georgia
• Kristen McDonald Rivet—Michigan
• Dave Min—California
• Joseph Morelle—New York
• Jared Moskowitz—Florida
• Frank J. Mrvan—Indiana
• Chris Pappas—New Hampshire
• Josh Riley—New York
• Hillary J. Scholten—Michigan
• Kim Schrier—Washington
• Terri A. Sewell—Alabama
• Eric Sorensen—Illinois
• Greg Stanton—Arizona
• Suhas Subramanyam—Virginia
• Tom Suozzi—New York
• Emilia Sykes—Ohio
• Dina Titus—Nevada
• Ritchie Torres—New York
• Derek Tran—California
• George Whitesides—California

A report from the inspector general’s office alleges that three senior Justice Department officials under Donald Trump had “partisan political motivation” for publicizing certain department activities ahead of the 2020 election.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 53-page report, which was published by ABC News Tuesday as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request, detailed the efforts of senior officials to target states with Democratic governors ahead of the 2020 elections. That could potentially violate the Hatch Act, which forbids federal employees from engaging in certain political activities in their official capacities.

In August 2020, the Department of Justice published a press release announcing that it had requested information about government-run nursing homes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, “despite having been provided data indicating that the nursing homes with the most significant quality of care issues were in other states,” according to the report.

While no one complained about the press release at the time, more recently, current and former officials described it as “unusual and inappropriate.”

As the election approached, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division pressured individuals in the department’s Civil Division to send a letter to New York officials seeking data on Covid-19 related deaths in private nursing homes.

The report said that individuals in the Civil Division were “led to believe” that the order to make information about this letter public had come straight from then–Attorney General Bill Barr.

In October 2020, a senior official with the DOJ’s Public Affairs Department texted colleagues that they wanted to leak information about the letter, as well as other information about an investigation into state-run nursing homes in New Jersey.

“I’m trying to get [them] to do letters to [New Jersey and New York] respectively on nursing homes. Would like to package them together and let [a certain tabloid] break it. Will be our last play on them before election but it’s a big one,” the official wrote, according to the report.

Then, a week before the election, information about the letter was provided to a New York–area tabloid and published, accusing New York authorities of undercounting deaths in nursing homes—which, to be clear, they actually had done, according to the report.

On October 27, 2020, the New York Post published an exclusive article titled “DOJ seeks more NY nursing home data after finding COVID death undercount.”

“The then upcoming 2020 election may have been a factor in the timing and manner of those actions and announcing them to the public,” Horowitz wrote in the report. He concluded that the three officials had violated the DOJ’s media contacts policy, and referred his findings to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

Donald Trump couldn’t help but gloat Tuesday that he’d successfully bullied Mark Zuckerberg into making a spate of policy changes at Meta that will allow for the rampant spread of misinformation.

During a press conference, one reporter asked the president-elect whether he thought he had anything to do with Zuckerberg’s decision to supposedly recommit his social media platforms to free speech by demolishing its fact-checking system, as well as certain content filters and restrictions. 

“Do you think he’s directly responding to the threats that you have made to him in the past?” the  reporter asked. 

“Probably,” Trump replied.

Meta’s new policy changes comes as Trump prepares to return to the White House and make good on the threats he’s been making to Zuckerberg for months. 

“We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison—as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Trump wrote in his book Save America, which was published in August. 

The president-elect had previously called out his buddy “ZUCKERBUCKS” in a July post on Truth Social, promising to “pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time.” 

Trump’s outrage at the technocrat was in direct response to Zuckerberg’s efforts to curb Covid-19 misinformation, which Trump readily provides. Zuckerberg’s content moderation efforts were rebranded on the right as a kind of censorship, rather than a public health and safety service. 

Zuckerberg has since gushed over the president-elect’s “badass” response to almost being assassinated, and donated a cool $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund through Meta. 

Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that Meta’s platforms Facebook, Instagram, and Threads would no longer have third-party fact-checkers, instead relying on X’s model of community notes, in which the mob decides the truth. Additionally, Zuckerberg said he’d remove restrictions around topics such as gender and immigration to create space for right-wing talking points and opinions that might have been silenced due to outdated concerns over the spread of dangerous misinformation or, hey, even hate speech. Zuckerberg also said he would raise the threshold for removing any problematic content to allow for a freer flow of ideas, whose quality will soon go entirely unvetted. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene is unsurprisingly feeling empowered by Trump’s plan to change the Gulf of Mexico’s name to the “Gulf of America.” Trump floated the idea at a press conference on Tuesday, claiming that the United States already had ownership of the Gulf anyway.

“We’re gonna be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America … what a beautiful name. And it’s appropriate … Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country. They can stop them.”

Greene appeared on popular right-wing commentator Benny Johnson’s show on Tuesday to gleefully reaffirm the president-elect’s goofy idea.

“I was so fired up watching the press conference today … I directed my leg staff to immediately draft legislation … to officially change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Green told Johnson. “And Congress has to do this.… It’s absolutely the right thing to do. We change post office names all the time up here. You better bet we are absolutely going to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Let’s go!”

This is Trump’s latest dream of world domination, as he has mentioned buying Greenland, pitched Canada as the fifty-first state, and raised taking over the Panama Canal.

The president-elect isn’t the first elected official to try to change the Gulf’s name. Former Representative Stephen Holland proposed a bill doing the exact same thing in 2012—but as a joke, a commentary on his Republican colleagues’ prejudice toward Mexico. Trump’s version is an oddly cosmetic nod to U.S. hegemony. The odds of Greene’s bill surviving remain to be seen.

Trump may be able to change the Gulf’s name on U.S. reference maps, but getting other countries (like … Mexico) to recognize it as such is a separate issue. The name Gulf of Mexico is credited to Baptiste Boazio, who was explorer Francis Drake’s illustrator in the 1580s.

Donald Trump has successfully blocked the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on the two federal criminal investigations into the president-elect, at least for the time being.

Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed by Trump, ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department can’t release the report, in response to a request from Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, two Trump aides who were the president-elect’s co-defendants in his classified documents case. Smith was expected to complete his report in the coming days, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has said he plans to release the report publicly.

Cannon’s ruling states that Garland, the Justice Department, Smith, and “all of their officers, agents, and employees, and all persons acting in active concert or participation with such individuals” can’t release any part of the report until three days after a federal appeals court rules on the issue.

However, the case is pending in the Eleventh Circuit, which is outside of Cannon’s jurisdiction, adding confusion to the fact that she technically doesn’t have the authority to make such a ruling. Plus, Cannon only presided over Trump’s classified documents case and not his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Ever since Trump appointed her to the federal bench, Cannon has gone out of her way to give the president-elect favorable rulings, especially regarding the classified documents case, which she dismissed on flimsy grounds. Once again, Cannon has  given Trump what he wants, albeit temporarily.

It backs up Trump’s idea that the law and justice system don’t apply to him, and should in fact legally protect him. He has the support of the conservative-controlled Supreme Court, which gave him near-total immunity last year. With Trump’s inauguration less than two weeks away, he may just run out the clock before the public can see the evidence against him that should have resulted in a successful prosecution.

Donald Trump just announced a massive new deal with a man connected to a $600,000 payment to the FBI informant convicted of lying to the FBI about Hunter Biden’s business decisions.

On Tuesday the president-elect announced a $20 billion investment from Emirati company DAMAC to build new data centers throughout the Unied States, according to CNBC.

The company was founded by Trump’s friend billionaire Hussain Sajwani. He and DAMAC are pledging “at least” $20 billion toward the centers, according to Trump. “They may go double, or even somewhat more than double, that amount of money,” the president-elect said. The “first phase” will begin in Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and Oklahoma. Trump has overstated similar investments in the past.

In 2020 FBI informant Alexander Smirnov received $600,000 from Economic Transformation Technologies, or ETT. He began lying to the FBI about Hunter and Joe Biden that year, claiming they were engaged in bribery. DAMAC chair Farooq Arjomand is a large ETT shareholder, and has strong ties to Trump via Sajwani.

This is the second high-profile investment announcement Trump has made since his election victory, with Japanese billionaire investor Masayoshi Son pledging $100 billion in American spending in December.