‘Do Not Say That’: Jake Tapper Admonishes Guest for Claiming Trump’s Nominees Can’t Get Worse Than Matt Gaetz
Jake Tapper implored a guest not to tempt fate after she claimed Matt Gaetz is the “floor” for President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees.
Trump nominated Gaetz as attorney general last week, but the former congressman withdrew his name from consideration on Thursday. Gaetz had been the subject of investigations by the Department of Justice and the House Ethics Committee over an allegation he had sex with a 17-year-old girl. The DOJ declined to charge Gaetz, and the committee decided not to release its findings after Gaetz resigned from Congress last week. He denies wrongdoing.
On Friday’s edition of The Lead on CNN, Margaret Hoover said Trump’s nominees would have an easier time being confirmed if he picked “qualified, respectable” people.
“[T]his could be much easier for him if he would pick qualified, respectable individuals who – it’s ok if you’re a Republican and you appoint a Republican attorney general. Just have somebody of the stature of the before times where the Overton window hasn’t shifted so badly, that you get people that are so stained.”
“I feel like I’m looking through a portal into 2014,” Tapper said.
“I know, 2012, 14, 10, the first decade of the 21st century,” Hoover replied. “But that’s not where we live now.”
Democratic strategist Rebecca Katz then dared to call Gaetz the “floor of a nomination,” which earned an objection from Tapper.
“I would just jump in to say that Matt Gaetz, he’s the floor, right?” she said. “He’s the absolute floor of a nomination.”
“Oh,” Tapper interrupted. “I’ve been covering politics for a long time. Do not say that because it will get worse.”
“Fair enough,” Katz responded. “But I’m just saying, usually for cabinet-level positions, you’re looking at resumes of deeply qualified people for the job. Donald Trump is looking at headshots, right? He is looking at these candidates and thinking, who would play one on TV?”
In a strong field, Gaetz was arguably Trump’s most controversial nomination so far. The president-elect nominated Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Police in Monterey, California investigated Hegseth after a woman claimed he raped her at a hotel there in 2017. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was not charged and denies the accusation. He reportedly paid off the woman.
Meanwhile, Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also been accused of sexual assault and promoted baseless medical claims, including the theory that vaccines cause autism and that HIV does not cause AIDS. Moreover, he has admitted to dropping off a dead bear cub in Central Park, and he reportedly decapitated a dead whale before strapping the head to the roof of his car to take home.
Watch above via CNN.
