Molly Jong-Fast: The Strange Saga of Matt Gaetz, or How Not to Handle a Crisis

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I wrote about Matt Gaetz in ⁦@voguemagazine⁩

The Strange Saga of Matt Gaetz, or How Not to Handle a Crisis
The scandal that’s currently surrounding Florida congressman Matt Gaetz started less than 24 hours ago. And yet its twists and turns have already made it a case study in crisis mismanagement.
vogue.com
12:54 PM · Mar 31, 2021

https://www.vogue.com/article/matt-gaetz-scandal


The scandal that’s currently rocking Washington started less than 24 hours ago when Axios reported that Florida congressman Matt Gaetz was eyeing an “early retirement to take a job at Newsmax,” according to sources. It was a story that didn’t make much sense: Why would a young Republican congressman from a ruby red district (the Cook Political Report has his district as a +22 GOP), who would surely be reelected, take early retirement to work at a second-tier conservative media outlet? It defied all political logic. But a few hours later, when The New York Times published a story about his alleged relationship with a 17-year-old girl, the whole thing made a lot more sense.

The 38-year-old congressman is one of the most famous House Republicans largely because he’s never met a microphone he didn’t like. He’s a regular on Fox News, a culture warrior for the right, often tweeting about the “wokeification of the military,” various Hunter Biden scandals real and imagined, and recalling Gavin Newsom. During the Trump presidency, Gaetz distinguished himself as a disgusting sycophant who would do anything for then president Donald Trump, once tweeting a threat against Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, “Hey @MichaelCohen212,” he wrote. “Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot…” The tweet was later deleted.

Gaetz also worked with Mo Brooks and Rand Paul to try to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden, and he used the terrifying “alt-right” group the Proud Boys for “security” at an event he attended. He also brought a rabid holocaust denier to Trump’s 2018 State of the Union address.

Since the scandal broke, Congressman Matt Gaetz has done almost everything a crisis communications firm would tell you not to. He did an interview on the Tucker Carlson show that Carlson later called “one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted.” Matt Gaetz used the interview to try and drag Tucker into it by alleging “I’m not the only person on screen right now who’s been falsely accused of a terrible sex act. You were accused of something you did not do, so you know what this feels like.” Tucker responded, perhaps not thrilled by the comparison, “You just referred to a mentally ill viewer who accused me of a sex crime 20 years ago. And of course, it was not true. I never met the person.” Later Gaetz tried again to drag the anchor into the story again: “You and I went to dinner about two years ago, your wife was there, and I brought a friend of mine, you’ll remember her.” Tucker was not pleased.

*snip*

[BigmanPigman]

1. "Tucker was not pleased". That's an understatement.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Lol!!!!!

I watched that interview several times just to enjoy Tucker's
deer in the headlights expression....😁

[BigmanPigman]

4. I laughed and laughed

since I did the same thing. Funniest video in years. I was an artist and I just had to draw a caricature of both of them, just for fun. Their expressions are priceless. I don't know which one is "Dumb" and which one is "Dumber". Gaetz does win the awards for worst dressed (a blue plaid jacket, purple tie) and for having the biggest bobble head in DC.

[SheltieLover]

2. K&R!