Hey, guys, welcome back to the bulwark. This is Will Summer. I'm joined today by Joe Perticoke. He's the author of our great

press-pass newsletter on Congress. Today, we're going to talk about Tony Gonzalez, the scandal-plagued

Republican congressman, who's now announced his retirement. Joe, what's going on?

So Tony Gonzalez, and this had been brewing for a while, the allegations that he had an affair

with one of his own staffers with a subordinate, which is another layer of, you know, unethical

behavior. But then the staffer, she committed suicide. She set herself on fire, died. More text

messages came out in which it was revealed that he was pressuring her and really

pushing her to send illicit photos and really pursuing her aggressively. And he was refusing to

bow out of his race. He was refusing to resign. And then he just came out and he said, I'm going to be not seeking re-election.

This was after his primary already advanced to a runoff. So now the other Republicans

is just going to walk away with it. But it also kind of shows how far gone things have gotten

in politics. Because if you remember when Paul Ryan was

speaker, like not that long ago, like 10 years ago, you had Trent Franks from Arizona, who he was

having trouble conceiving with his wife and therefore started inquiring and seeking surrogates

within Capitol Hill. And he tried to pressure staffers

allegedly to carry his child. And it wasn't just, you know, I want you to be a surrogate,

allegedly. It was, I want to do it the old-fashioned way with you. And he was forced to resign.

And he resigned from Congress. And this, there's been no pressure

on Gonzalez to resign. There's been a few Republicans, rank and file Republicans, but Mike Johnson

hasn't said, you need to resign. He hasn't told him you need to get out of here because he knows

that the majority is thin. And he has made the calculation that he'd rather have a thin majority with scumbags in it

than maybe have a more difficult time for the next few months and not have a horribly

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