Matt Gaetz via his congressional website
Less than 24 hours after Matt Gaetz announced he was giving up his bid to become the next attorney general, the Northwest Florida Republican made clear that he will not return to Congress in the next session beginning in January.
“I’m still going to be in the fight, but it’s going to be from a new perch. I do not intend to join the 119th Congress,” Gaetz said on Friday in a livestreamed interview on the Charlie Kirk Show. “I’m going to be fighting for President Trump. I’m going to do whatever he asks of me, as I always have, but I think that eight years is probably enough time in the United States Congress.”
Gaetz resigned from his seat representing Florida’s 1st Congressional District last week, shortly after President-elect Donald Trump nominated him to serve as his attorney general. He announced on Thursday that because of growing doubts he could be confirmed because of a House Ethics panel investigation about alleged payments for sex, including with an underage girl, he would withdraw his name for consideration to head the U.S. Justice Department.
Gaetz told Kirk that he believed his nomination “had great momentum,” but acknowledged it had become a “full-time job” explaining to some Republican senators whose votes he needed that “maybe a tweet I sent about them was maybe rash and not reflective of how I would serve as attorney general.”
The 42-year-old Gaetz, first elected to represent Florida’s 1st District in 2016 and who won every election since then by double digits, has been a lightning rod in the Republican House Caucus, primarily for his leadership in taking down former Speaker Kevin McCarthy a little over a year ago.
Members of the Republican-led House Ethics panel voted along party lines on Wednesday not to release the results of their investigation of Gates and instead to meet again on De. 5 to vote on the final report. Gaetz blasted the credibility of that document in his interview with Kirk.
‘A plague that is run in Washington’
“There is a plague that is run in Washington where they’re trying to smear somebody, they go and dredge up false, years-old allegations of the most salacious and clickbaity flavor possible,” he said.
“And in this case, those allegations were coming from sources that Merrick Garland’s DOJ had already deemed not credible. Like, if the things that the House Ethics Report were true, I would be under indictment and probably in a prison cell.
“But of course, they’re false. Because when you test them against other records, when you test them against other testimony, it all falls apart very quickly. But I was dealing with a politically motivated body. They didn’t like me because of what I did with Kevin McCarthy. All of them were picked by Kevin McCarthy. They had an axe to grind.
“So that was going to serve as at least enough of a basis to delay my confirmation as attorney general. I could have answered all those questions. I could have engaged in a months-long fact battle, but we don’t have months to go through that. We’ve gotta have an A.G. ready to go Day One to implement the immigration agenda and work on the other key policy deregulatory objectives of the president.”
Special election
Speculation ran rampant Thursday that Gaetz might decide to run for the congressional seat he vacated just nine days ago. While he announced last week that he would resign from the current Congress, there was a chance he could run again for the seat, whenever the election date is set by Gov. Ron DeSantis. But Gaetz’ comments on Friday killed that speculation.
There are now six Republicans and one Democrat who plan to run for Gaetz’ seat.
Gaetz praised Trump’s nomination of former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to now become his U.S. attorney general and hinted at what Trump is looking for from his A.G.
“A.G. Bondi will be able to implement those Trump policies right away, so we’re ready on Day One,” he said. “We remember that it was the Department of Justice with Sally Yates on Day One of the last Trump administration where a lot of our agenda was scuttled. Where they started the whole Russia hoax nonsense. Where they limited the president’s ability to do what was necessary on some immigration fronts.”
For more than a year, Gaetz has been floated as a possible 2026 candidate for governor after Ron DeSantis’ tenure ends, though he has denied those rumors. He also could still be appointed by Trump to a position in the federal government that doesn’t require Senate confirmation.
“I plan to be a big voice, but maybe not as an elected member of the government,” he said.