Why Matt Gaetz Keeps Getting Away with It
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2024
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
Representative Matt Gaetz is one of the most outspoken critics of the status quo in Washington, which he demonstrated most recently by playing a key role in removing fellow-Republican Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. How was Gaetz able to pull off such a feat given his deep unpopularity in Congress, and the fact that he’s under a House Ethics Committee investigation for the sex trafficking of a minor? The New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins, who recently profiled Gaetz in the magazine, joins Tyler Foggatt to explore the congressman’s motivations, including how fractured party politics have played a role in his rise to fame. “The party has to decide what it is,” Filkins says. “It’s not what it used to be, and it’s rapidly becoming something else. . . . In the interregnum, we’re seeing all these morbid symptoms as the party kind of convulses and tries to figure out its new identity.”
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| 0:47.7 | Gates is really, he's an anomaly in the party. |
| 0:50.9 | More than a couple of people said to me, he's the most unpopular member of Congress. |
| 0:56.1 | And yet, he just almost single-handedly, not quite, but almost single-handedly succeeded in |
| 1:02.4 | removing the House Speaker. And so it's kind of a paradox, you know, like how, how is it possible |
| 1:09.3 | that somebody this unpopular is able to pull |
| 1:11.5 | off something like that? |
| 1:18.9 | That's my colleague Dexter Filkins. |
| 1:21.4 | Dexter has spent months digging into Florida Congressman Matt Gates, who has become one of the |
| 1:25.5 | Republican Party's rising stars, even as he threatens to break the party apart. |
| 1:30.0 | I asked Dexter to come on the show to tell us more about Gates' rise to power and about what actually motivates him, aside from just creating chaos. |
| 1:37.8 | This is the political scene. I'm Tyler Foggett, and I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker. |
| 1:55.8 | So, Dexter, you often report on conflicts overseas, but you were also raised in Florida, |
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