News
A majority of Senate Republicans doubt Matt Gaetz will be confirmed as attorney general, sources say
More than half of Senate Republicans, including some in senior leadership positions, privately say they don’t see a path for former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to be confirmed as attorney general and would not support him to lead the Department of Justice, according to multiple people who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity.
While Gaetz’s ability to be confirmed appears on the rocks among Senate Republicans, President-elect Donald Trump’s team remains confident he will eventually be confirmed, even if it’s after an ugly battle.
NBC News spoke to more than 15 additional Republican sources who agreed that there are not enough votes in the Senate to confirm Gaetz, and some estimated that closer to 30 Republicans consider him unqualified.
Gaetz and Trump attorney Todd Blanche are moving full speed ahead on trying to fill out the Justice Department, according to sources familiar with the planning. If confirmed, Blanche would serve in the powerful No. 2 position at the Justice Department, overseeing all U.S. attorney’s offices throughout the country.
“President Trump and his team are focused on and confident in the confirmation of AG-designee Gaetz,” a person familiar with Trump’s thinking told NBC News.
Vice President-elect JD Vance and his aides have also been working the phones over the last two days to get a read on where senators stand on Gaetz.
Trump announced he was choosing Gaetz for the attorney general role on Wednesday, writing in a post on Truth Social, “Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.”
When the president-elect initially publicized his pick, many Republicans — except for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who got a heads-up from Trump — were in complete shock.
In his few terms in the House, Gaetz has often been embroiled in controversy.
He was investigated by the Justice Department in a case involving the alleged sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl, though the former congressman, who resigned his post shortly after he was picked for attorney general, has always denied the allegations and has never been criminally charged.
On Thursday, though, a lawyer for the 17-year-old girl wrote in a post on X, saying, “She was a high school student and there were witnesses” when the alleged incident occurred.
The attorney, John Clune, also called for the release of a House Ethics Committee report detailing the committee’s investigation into Gaetz, which has been ongoing for several years.
“If they want to send [the report] that’d be fine,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a staunch Trump ally, told reporters at the Capitol this week, though he added in a statement from his office that he planned to vote to confirm each of the president-elect’s judicial nominees.
On Friday, Johnson said he would “strongly request” that the report not be released publicly, though several Republican senators have said they would like to view the report as part of their deliberation process ahead of a confirmation vote.
“I don’t want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate can consider,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters at the Capitol this week when asked whether the Senate Judiciary Committee should be privy to the report.
“We need to have a complete vetting of the nominees, not only so we know that the nominee is qualified, but also to protect the president,” he added.
“I think when you’re at this point, particularly given his abrupt departure from Congress just prior to that report coming out, considering the job that he is being appointed to, considering that the FBI is going to do a background check anyway, I can’t imagine that the committee is not going to want to see it,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. “So, at the very least, those of us that will have a vote at some point, starting with the Judiciary Committee, should see that. And I can’t imagine they won’t.”
The House Ethics Committee was expected to meet on Friday to decide whether to release its report on Gaetz, whom it has been investigating on and off since 2021, according to a source with direct knowledge. The panel abruptly canceled the meeting, which House Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest, R-Miss., insisted was only postponed.
Later on Friday, an attorney for another woman interviewed by the House Ethics Committee said that his client “testified to the House Ethics Committee that she witnessed Rep. Gaetz having sex with a minor at a house party in Orlando in 2017.”
Several Republicans shared that Gaetz, who was investigated by the very agency he could now oversee, has a “steep hill” to climb toward confirmation in the Senate.
“I would guess if we had a vote today on the Senate floor, it might be more than that,” Cramer said Thursday when pressed whether 10 Senate Republicans could vote to oppose Gaetz — as Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal suggested to NBC News earlier that day. “I have concerns that he can’t get across the finish line, and we’re gonna spend a lot of political capital … on something that even if they got it done, you’d have to wonder if it was worth it.”
Republicans who oppose Gaetz now could still ultimately vote to confirm him when the time comes, especially if pressure from Trump mounts.
If Republicans wind up with 53 seats in the upper chamber after the recount in Pennsylvania’s Senate race is concluded, Gaetz will not be confirmed if more than three GOP Senators vote against him (Vance could break a tie as the president of the Senate).
Republicans like Cramer have also cautioned Trump not to jam someone like Gaetz through in a recess appointment, which would bypass the Senate confirmation process.
Shortly after he was projected to win the presidential election, Trump wrote a post on Truth Social urging Republicans running to be the next Senate majority leader to allow him to use recess appointments to confirm a Cabinet quickly.
This style of nomination would bypass the normal appointment process, leaving the Senate entirely out of the equation, by allowing Trump to appoint members of his Cabinet while both chambers of Congress are in periods of recess that last days or weeks.
The House and Senate currently gavel in for pro forma sessions while in recess to prevent the president from taking such steps to appoint Cabinet members.
Since the Truth Social post, Trump has not asked for any specific Cabinet pick, including Gaetz, to be confirmed via recess appointment.
“If the obstructionists are the other party, and you have the votes to confirm somebody, then I think you could make an ethical decision to provide that opportunity, that constitutional opportunity,” Cramer said. “On the other hand, if the opposition is preventing you from doing it with your own party, I think it runs a couple of risks. You could do it, but you’d have a very weak Cabinet secretary.”
Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, the Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator, said she was fired from the agency Friday after she declined to resign.
She said she did not know who had ordered her firing or why, nor whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knew of her fate. The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The departure reflected the upheaval at the F.D.A., days after the resignation of Dr. Marty Makary, the agency commissioner. Dr. Makary had become a lightning rod for critics of the agency’s decisions to reject applications for rare disease drugs and to delay a report meant to supply damaging evidence about the abortion drug mifepristone. He also spent months before his departure pushing back on the White House’s requests for him to approve more flavored vapes, the reason he ultimately cited for leaving.
Dr. Hoeg’s hiring had startled public health leaders who were familiar with her track record as a vaccine skeptic, and she played a leading role in some of the agency’s most divisive efforts during her tenure. She worked on a report that purportedly linked the deaths of children and young adults to Covid vaccines, a dossier the agency has not released publicly. She was also the co-author of a document describing Mr. Kennedy’s decision to pare the recommendations for 17 childhood vaccines down to 11.
But in an interview on Friday, Dr. Hoeg said she “stuck with the science.”
“I am incredibly proud of the work we were doing,” Dr. Hoeg said, adding, “I’m glad that we didn’t give in to any pressures to approve drugs when it wasn’t appropriate.”
As the director of the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, she was a political appointee in a role that had been previously occupied by career officials. An epidemiologist who was trained in the United States and Denmark, she worked on efforts to analyze drug safety and on a panel to discuss the use of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most widely prescribed class of antidepressants, during pregnancy. She also worked on efforts to reduce animal testing and was the agency’s liaison to an influential vaccine committee.
She made sure that her teams approved drugs only when the risk-benefit balance was favorable, she said.
The firing worsens the leadership vacuum at the F.D.A. and other agencies, with temporary leaders filling the role of commissioner, food chief and the head of the biologics center, which oversees vaccines and gene therapies. The roles of surgeon general and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also unfilled.
The U.S. Supreme Court
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday to allow Virginia to use a new congressional map that favored Democrats in all but one of the state’s U.S. House seats. The map was a key part of Democrats’ effort to counter the Republican redistricting wave set off by President Trump.
The new map was drawn by Democrats and approved by Virginia voters in an April referendum. But on May 8, the Supreme Court of Virginia in a 4-to-3 vote declared the referendum, and by extension the new map, null and void because lawmakers failed to follow the proper procedures to get the issue on the ballot, violating the state constitution.
Virginia Democrats and the state’s attorney general then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to put into effect the map approved by the voters, which yields four more likely Democratic congressional seats. In their emergency application, they argued the Virginia Supreme Court was “deeply mistaken” in its decision on “critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the Nation.” Further, they asserted the decision “overrode the will of the people” by ordering Virginia to “conduct its election with the congressional districts that the people rejected.”
Republican legislators countered that it would be improper for the U.S. Supreme Court to wade into a purely state law controversy — especially since the Democrats had not raised any federal claims in the lower court.
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Republicans without explanation leaving in place the state court ruling that voided the Democratic-friendly maps.
The court’s decision not to intervene was its latest in emergency requests for intervention on redistricting issues. In December, the high court OK’d Texas using a gerrymandered map that could help the GOP win five more seats in the U.S. House. In February, the court allowed California to use a voter-approved, Democratic-friendly map, adopted to offset Texas’s map. Then in March, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the redrawing of a New York map expected to flip a Republican congressional district Democratic.
And perhaps most importantly, in April, the high court ruled that a Louisiana congressional map was a racial gerrymander and must be redrawn. That decision immediately set off a flurry of redistricting efforts, particularly in the South, where Republican legislators immediately began redrawing congressional maps to eliminate long established majority Black and Hispanic districts.
An explosion and fire drew a large emergency response on Friday to a lumber mill in the Midcoast region of Maine, officials said.
The State Police and fire marshal’s investigators responded to Robbins Lumber in Searsmont, about 72 miles northeast of Portland, said Shannon Moss, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Mike Larrivee, the director of the Waldo County Regional Communications Center, said the number of victims was unknown, cautioning that “the information we’re getting from the scene is very vague.”
“We’ve sent every resource in the county to that area, plus surrounding counties,” he said.
Footage from the scene shared by WABI-TV showed flames burning through the roof of a large structure as heavy, dark smoke billowed skyward.
The Associated Press reported that at least five people were injured, and that county officials were considering the incident a “mass casualty event.”
Catherine Robbins-Halsted, an owner and vice president at Robbins Lumber, told reporters at the scene that all of the company’s employees had been accounted for.
Gov. Janet T. Mills of Maine said on social media that she had been briefed on the situation and urged people to avoid the area.
“I ask Maine people to join me in keeping all those affected in their thoughts,” she said.
Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, said on social media that he was aware of the fire and explosion.
“As my team and I seek out more information, I am praying for the safety and well-being of first responders and everyone else on-site,” he said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
-
Austin, TX5 minutes agoAustin leaders debate future of I-35 Cap & Stitch projects as new proposal cuts back spending
-
Alabama11 minutes agoWhere to watch Alabama softball vs Belmont today: Time, TV info
-
Alaska17 minutes agoLeaks, mold, cold, sewage plague Anchorage apartments after California landlord took over
-
Arizona23 minutes agoBig 12 Track Championships: Arizona sweeps shot put titles, Sydnie Vanek wins long jump
-
Arkansas29 minutes ago
No. 5 Arkansas Run-Rules Fordham, 8-0 in Regional Opener
-
California35 minutes agoCommentary: L.A.’s cracked sidewalks are a symptom of a bigger breakdown. Does new plan offer real hope?
-
Colorado41 minutes agoColorado RattleCam crawling with venomous snakes you must see yourself
-
Connecticut47 minutes agoThey Rescued a Teardown and Raised the Roof