Matt Gaetz answered top-of-mind questions on his political future and took a swipe at a bipartisan investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct during an interview with Charlie Kirk shared on Friday.
The former Florida congressman was briefly nominee to Donald Trump's Cabinet before a long-simmering report into alleged sexual misconduct derailed his nomination. Gaetz withdrew from consideration as the House Ethics Committee battled over whether to release their report, announcing on Thursday that controversy over his confirmation was “a distraction” to the president-elect’s agenda.
Asked by Kirk if he intended to return to the House seat he gave up, Gaetz said he was done with the Hill.
“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 shared.
Gaetz also denied the allegations at the heart of the unreleased Ethics report, claiming the bipartisan committee was engaged in a witch hunt.
“If the things in the House Ethics report were true, I would be under indictment and probably in a prison cell, but of course, they're false,” he said. “I was dealing with a politically motivated body. They didn't like me because of what I did to Kevin McCarthy. All of them were hand-picked by Kevin McCarthy, and they had an axe to grind.”
McCarthy and Gaetz’s public feuds led to Gaetz forcing a vote to vacate his speakership last year. Gaetz reportedly struggled to find Republican support in the Senate, too, where he attempted to whip votes on Wednesday with Vice President-elect JD Vance.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered state officials to schedule a special election to fill Gaetz’s seat last week. That election will take place on April Fool's Day 2025. Until that election takes place, the vacancies could make a narrow GOP majority even slimmer.
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