Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on Matt Gaetz withdrawing from consideration to be Trump's attorney general

After being clouded in sexual misconduct allegations, Matt Gaetz has withdrawn his name from consideration to become Donald Trumps' attorney general. 

The former Republican congressman says he felt he was becoming a distraction, and didn't want to waste time on a "scuffle". 

US correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking Gaetz had faced intense scrutiny over a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use. 

He says this is the first loss from Team Trump, who has been issuing threats to keep Senators in line. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Richard Arnold, morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:02):
You could argue was always going to end up this way,
couldn't you.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Yes, But this is pretty fast moving, is it not.
Matt Gates pulling out from the nomination for Chief Justice
position as Attorney General. It comes as Gates had just
been on Capitol Hill yesterday as he was saying in
company with Yate Evans, the Vice President of Electron, to
compel senators to vote for Gates. Then came this bombshell
new disclosure that the Ethics Panel had word of another

(00:26):
sexual encounter at the same party back in twenty seventeen,
where Gates was said to have had sex with an
underage girl aged seventeen. What is notable about this new
testimony is that this second sexual encounter at the party
also involved another adult woman who has denied there was
a thresome. But all this was a bit much. So
here is the first lost by Team Trump, which has

(00:47):
been issuing political threats as it tries to keep Senators
in line. Earlier, the Ethics Panel refused to release the
report into gates sexual activities. The panel has what five
Republicans five Dems, they i'd agree to complete the report
but then one of the Dems came out of the
media accusing the Republican Committee chair of suggesting they'd reached

(01:08):
some settlement. They had not, said this Democrat Susan Wilds,
who said that the committee boys had betrayed the process,
so senators were playing their games. At the same time,
the New York Times had released an FBI chart that
they had obtained showing a series of payments by Gates
and by his cohort Joel Greenberg, who's serving an eleven
year prison term for sex trafficking. That FBI chart shows

(01:31):
some twenty seven payments, including some of the ten thousand
dollars in gates payments to the two women who said
earlier that he had paid them for sex that included
cash for that high schooler, said her lawyer, Joel Leppard.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
The amounts that were provided on the screen during their
testimony by the House was from one client over six
thousand payments directly from Representative Gates to my client, and
the the amount was a little or four thousand directly
from representive Gets to my client.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
So a lot involted all of this. A one Trump
aid had been warning quote, the message is if you're
on the wrong side of the vote. You're buying yourself
a primary, that is all. There's a guy named Elon
Musk who was going to finance it. So so much
for that. Even as the Gates debarcle was playing out,
the president lex defense choice. Fox and Friends Weekend TV
co host Pete Heggss is on Capitol Hill right now

(02:25):
as well, trying to win support as a graphic police
document has just come out on the claim by a
woman he met at a Republican women's conference, a claim
that he had sexually assaulted her. Higgs Seth denials that
says he was clear since no charges were brought. At
the same time, this thing is pretty lurid. This woman,
whose name is not being released as haig Seth was

(02:46):
hitting on several women at the Republican conference, putting his
hand on their legs. His accuser says they got into
an argument. Then she says she believes someone had slipped
something into her drink. She says she then awoke in
Hegseth's room, that she was hazy and the only barely conscious,
and that he had taken her phone and blocked the doorway.
Hegg says says the sex was consensual, So that's part

(03:11):
of that story. Elsewhere, Nikki Haley, who was on Trump's
who was Trump's you Went ambassador in his first season and
his former campaign opponent, of course, is slamming the choice
of Tulsey Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. So that's
another story still playing out that says Haley.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
This is not a place for a Russian, Iranian, Syrian,
Chinese sympathizer.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
So the Murdoch, Wall Street Journal and New York Post
Today also are opposing Gabbard. So will any of that
prevail against Trump and co?

Speaker 1 (03:42):
And what chance Google get rid of crime?

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, yeah, this is interesting. The Justice Department is proposing
the breakup of Google and it's a two trigger dollar
operation along with the number of state states as well.
The Federal Department is asking the court to force Google
to v shape competition on the Internet. They want Google to,
among other things, so that web browser Chrome, which dominates
the market has about two thirds of users the The

(04:08):
EJ also is asking Google to sell Android as smartphone
operating system, which again is the most popular on the
mobile phone market with an estimated seventy percent plus of
software systems. Debate over this is going to be furiously
challenged by googlers, you'd expect, so don't anticipate any moves
until late next year at the earliest.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Have a good week nd Richard Arnold state, so, by
the way, he's busy Trump at the moment. Susan Collins
and Makowski, who are a couple of Republicans, but they
sort of lean centrist, if not left. They've been backing
up and voting for Biden's picks on the judiciary or
at the judiciary. And there's still a couple of dozen
more to go, and so Trump's desperately trying to stop

(04:48):
the courts as he sees it being stacked with left wingers.
It's an interesting insight and how much influenced the president
has on the judicial process since he's been in Senates
confirmed two hundred and sixty normandies for this federal judiciary.
There are two hundred and sixty one in place, so
they are still about what fifty to go.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, Listen live to
News Talks at b from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.