Today we're going to talk about Trump's extreme gamble with the Matt Gates Attorney General nomination and what he risks by doing it.

And I interview Congressman Daniel Goldman to discuss what he and Democrats are doing in light of Trump's threat to run for a third term.

I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.

Donald Trump has nominated Matt Gates, who was, until recently, under investigation by the DOJ to lead the DOJ as Attorney General.

And of course, this comes amid a wave of other highly unqualified nominees.

We've got anti-environment Lee Zeldin at EPA, anti-Science, RFK Jr. at Health and Human Services,

the aggressively unqualified Fox host Pete Hegseth at

defense. And of course, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramoswamy got their participation trophies of a

made-up new agency called the Department of Government Efficiency or Doge so that Elon can post

memes about it. But Gates is a different level of uniquely unqualified and dangerous. So why is Trump doing this?

First, Trump thinks he's going to succeed. He believes that he has some giant mandate to plow ahead

with zero moderating forces, no need to sacrifice anything. And so why not arm yourself with

a groveling sycophant who's going to turn the DOJ into your own personal

retribution force. But second, the prospect of Gates' confirmation serves the added purpose,

the added benefit of proving a larger point that Trump wholly owns this Republican Party,

that he's got this party so under his thumb, though vote for even the least qualified nominee.

And I mean that literally.

The guy was literally, again, just investigated by the very agency that he is seeking to

lead for alleged sex trafficking of a minor.

Like, that is the one thing that Republicans have effectively predicated their entire identity

on blocking.

For the last decade, these people have been losing their skulls over the prospect

...