November 18, 2024: Sex, drugs and cabinet appointments

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

Daily News, Politics, Government, News

4.2 • 614 Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Two of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments are facing accusations of sexual misconduct, and the ensuing mess is just getting started. The House Ethics Committee report on Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, who has been under investigation for allegations of having sex with a minor and illicit drug use at sex parties, may be released yet. This, despite the Florida representative’s resignation from Congress, and even some Republicans are calling for the release of that report. But Gaetz isn’t alone. Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault as part of a nondisclosure agreement. He denies the assault. Playbook co-author Rachael Bade unpacks this situation. Plus, is Howard Lutnick too thirsty to be Treasury secretary? All that, plus the rest of the news you need to know today.

Transcript

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0:00.0	presented by BP.
0:05.4	Good morning, everyone. I'm Playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Monday, November 18th, and here's
0:11.4	what's driving the day. You might remember a few years ago when former Congressman Madison
0:16.0	Cawthorne suggested that he was invited by colleagues to orgies and witnessed members doing bumps of cocaine.
0:23.5	A lot of people back then here in Washington snickered at him and accused him of sort of peddling a
0:28.5	house of cards type fantasy that truly doesn't exist. Well, today we're about to hear a whole lot
0:35.7	about one member's alleged sex life.
0:38.3	That member, Matt Gates, who, as you know, is Donald Trump's pick for Attorney General.
0:43.9	An attorney representing two of the women who testified against Gates before the Justice
0:48.0	Department and the House Ethics Committee plans to go public today with what his clients
0:52.9	told investigators.
0:54.5	That guy's name is Joel Lepard.
0:56.4	He's called for the Ethics Committee to release the Gates report,
0:59.2	and last night I caught up with him on the phone,
1:01.6	and he previewed what he's going to be saying on his media circuit today.
1:05.3	He's going to tell the world that his clients attended more than five
1:08.2	and as many as 10 sex parties with Gates between the summer of
1:12.0	2017 and the end of 2018. That, of course, is after Gates was elected to Congress. At the parties,
1:19.6	he said, people regularly engaged in threesomes, foursums, quote, group sex situations,
1:25.8	and drugs were heavily present.
1:28.3	He's also going to tell the world that one of his clients witnessed Gates having a one-on-one
1:32.7	sexual encounter with her friend who was a minor at the time, against what she recalls as some
	...

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