Still trying to wrap your head around this Matt Gaetz story? There’s a lot to unpack. The Republican Congressman from Florida, something of a Trump wannabe, is being investigated by the Justice Department for sexual activity with an underage girl. That’s just the short version.
For a full explainer, check out Philip Bump’s piece in The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, when you thought the whole thing couldn’t get any weirder, Gaetz went on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and tried to drag Carlson into the mess about having dinners and past allegations against Carlson. Carlson put on that dumbfounded face that has become something of a trademark and then acted like he didn’t have the first clue as to what Gaetz was talking about. The headline on the story by Vox’s Aaron Rupar called the interview “disastrous.”
After the interview, even Carlson said, “That was one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted.”
The Hill’s Thomas Moore also has a story: “Five of the oddest moments from Carlson-Gaetz interview.”
Then, during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Stephanie Ruhle Reports” on Wednesday, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner discussed Gaetz’s semantics when Gaetz told Carlson he was the “subject” and not the “target” of a DOJ investigation. Kirschner said Gaetz trying to separate the two to make it sound like “subject” was not bad was like “grasping at straws.”
“‘Target’ means exactly what it sounds like,” Kirschner said. “You are the person we’re investigating and intending to indict. ‘Subject’ is almost as bad. ‘Subject’ means that you have potentially engaged in criminal acts. And your criminal acts are within the scope of the Department of Justice investigation. … ‘Subject’ is not a badge of merit. It’s like: ‘target’ minus one.”
One more Gaetz story to mention, this one with a wild headline from The Washington Post’s Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett: “Gaetz investigation complicated by overture to his father about ex-FBI agent who went missing.”
Gaetz’s next move
Right before The New York Times’ big story about the DOJ investigation involving Gaetz, the buzz around Gaetz was the scoop by Axios’ Alayna Treene that Gaetz was thinking about stepping away from public office to take an on-air job at Newsmax.
On Wednesday, Gaetz told The Daily Beast’s Asawin Suebsaeng and Justin Baragona that he has been talking to more than just Newsmax.
“I’ve had many conversations with many people about life after Congress. These conversations have been very general in nature and have never included me soliciting or receiving an offer of employment,” Gaetz said. “There is not a single conservative television station I haven’t had a passing conversation with about life after Congress. I have neither received nor solicited offers from any of them. But yes, I’ve talked to either executives, producers or hosts at Newsmax, OAN, Fox, Fox Business, Real America’s Voice and probably others I’m forgetting in this moment as I focus intently on refuting false accusations against me.”
A Fox News spokesperson told The Daily Beast, “No one with any level of authority has had conversations with Matt Gaetz for any of our platforms and we have no interest in hiring him.”
The Daily Beast story indicated OAN isn’t looking for any show hosts right now.
Meanwhile, a career in TV likely also hinges on what happens with the current controversy and investigation involving Gaetz
What’s in a name
Speaking of the Matt Gaetz story, take a moment today to say a quick prayer for Matt Gertz. He works for Media Matters for America. As you can see from his name, it’s just a couple of letters off from Gaetz’s name. And his Twitter handle also is just a couple of letters off.
So every time Gaetz the politician does or says or is involved in something controversial (and that’s somewhat frequently), Gertz the journalist gets mobbed by the internet. His go-to response is “wrong guy” — something he has had to use over and over and over again in the past two days.
In a 2019 Twitter thread, which he dusted off and put out again Wednesday, Gertz wrote, “Also my Twitter handle very closely resembles that of a particularly dumb congressman, which often turns my mentions into a hellscape. Fun times!”
I can feel for Gertz. I share my name with the famous singer. I’ve always enjoyed my name because the worst I ever get is someone saying, “It’s not unusual” or, “What’s new, pussycat?” I can live with that. In fact, it helps people remember my name. But I must admit that, deep down, I’ve held my breath that the singer never does anything awful to stain the name “Tom Jones” forever.
For example, the radio play-by-play announcer for the Baltimore Ravens is a man named Gerry Sandusky. That was fine until a former Penn State assistant football coach named Jerry Sandusky was convicted for molesting children in a case that started making big news about a decade ago. Gerry and Jerry aren’t related, but Gerry has received his share of internet attacks simply because people confused him with someone else.
Now Matt Gertz is going through another round of internet harassment because of Matt Gaetz. So keep him in your thoughts.
Best shot
The editorial board of The Star Tribune in Minneapolis has launched an occasional series called “Our Best Shot,” which will take on the issue of vaccine hesitancy and misinformation. Here’s the first installment — “The big risk is not getting vaccinated” — which looks at the side effects of vaccines. This is the kind of work news outlets need to be doing to inform their audiences about the vaccine.
On that topic, my Poynter colleague Joie Chen held an On Poynt discussion about COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Poynter’s Angela Fu has a recap of the conversation.
