MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday aired a supercut of President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz insulting some of the very senators whose votes he will now depend on to confirm him in his new job.
The former Florida congressman’s confirmation prospects have been hurt by lingering questions around allegations of wrongdoing including having sex with a minor—claims which Gaetz has always denied. Trump said this week that he is not reconsidering Gaetz as his choice for AG but he may have trouble convincing even loyal lawmakers to support the move, particularly given some of the personal attacks Gaetz has launched against his colleagues in the past.
Introducing the montage of Gaetz’s insults, which first aired on The Beat on Wednesday night, Morning Joe co-host Willie Geist noted that Gaetz is “not popular among his colleagues on Capitol Hill” given his history of insulting lawmakers “including those who will vote on his nomination.”
The supercut opened with Gaetz speaking to Tucker Carlson on Fox News about Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME). “We have Murkowski and Collins rejecting the duties that they have as senators,” Gaetz says in the footage. “And if they do that, their voters should reject them.”
It then showed Gaetz mentioning Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) after saying “speaking of fools,” and claiming that Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) “real legacy” is that “he was missing in action when we needed him most and spent a lot of his time in the Senate putting special interests above American interests.”
Gaetz also threw barbs at others, including Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Cornyn (R-TX), in the clips.
“I counted eight,” Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough said after the supercut ended, holding up eight fingers. “That’s eight right there! And those are recent insults.”
“Yeah, eight senators that he’s trashed,” Geist replied. “And those are just the ones in that moment, he’s done a lot more of that.”
