Matt Gaetz eloped [View all]

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/08/matt-gaetz-ginger-luckey-eloped


Coming off a sweep through the Midwest that included stops at the Iowa State Fair and a rally in Des Moines with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz got married. In a quiet ceremony on Catalina Island off the coast of California, Gaetz and Ginger Luckey tied the knot. For a guy who craves the spotlight, the event was uncharacteristically understated. Aside from former Rand Paul staffer Sergio Gor, who took up the dual role of officiant and DJ, and war room hosts Raheem Kassam and Natalie Winters, few political personas were in attendance. Luckey’s brother, Palmer, and his partner, Nicole––who arrived on the former’s decommissioned naval vessel—and Nestor Galban, Gaetz’s adopted son, represented the family. About 30 other friends “from normal life” rounded out the party. Gaetz cooked for the group, serving up a menu of BBQ chicken legs, grilled vegetables, and a watermelon salad.

The elopement was something of a surprise. The couple had previously planned to get married next August—or so they told me on a sticky summer afternoon late last month, when I met the two in the lobby bar of New York City’s Ace Hotel. Amidst a tornado of scandal for the congressman — the behavior he’s been accused of ranges from gross to potentially illegal and includes, but is not limited to, sex trafficking of a minor; sharing nude photos of women with his colleagues on the House floor; taking a sex-fueled jaunt to the Bahamas; and drug use — I was there to meet Luckey and, their hope was, to expand the public understanding of her beyond “that poor girl marrying Matt Gaetz.”

New York City isn’t known as the friendliest territory for Republicans with Gaetz’s level of opprobrium, and he dressed the part when we met. Clad in a casual cotton T-shirt and a baseball cap pulled low, Gaetz hardly fit the part of the bombastic firebrand who rode Donald Trump’s coattails to the upper echelon of MAGAworld—no Fox News bronze or overly coiffed bouffant in sight. But it’s clear that Washington, D.C., is no longer friendly territory either. Just days after our meeting, Gaetz was hounded off during a press conference. “Are you a pedophile?” a woman could be heard repeatedly shouting in videos of the incident. For years Gaetz enjoyed the shelter afforded to a lawmaker who spent most of his time brownnosing the president, but the Biden era has seen him fall under federal investigation.

Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing. He will tell you, emphatically, as he sits at a high-top table at the Ace Hotel, “I have fewer on-record accusers than Joe Biden.” As the investigation continues, he’s taking cues from the former president. “I have seen so much in politics: people distracted, dismayed, disoriented by bad coverage,” he said. “In a way Trump was an inspiration for me because despite whatever they were saying about him—with foreign intelligence services, with the DOJ—he had a determination to say what he was gonna say and share his vision for the country.”

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