Today’s notice: This is our final newsletter of 2024! We’ll be back and bursting to tell you the stories you won’t see anywhere else come January. Thank you so, so much for being part of this, and we wish you and yours a happy and restful holiday season.
What Do We Know About Matt?
It feels like maybe the longest cycle in recent political history: the rise, stumble, then face-plant of Matt Gaetz. Turns out it actually hasn’t been that long!
NOTUS’ Reese Gorman and Violet Jira have the timeline of how we got to Monday. Hard to believe it was April 27, 2023, when Gaetz told CNN he would give Kevin McCarthy “an A” as speaker, the pair detail. That date was “less than a month before the Ethics Committee restarted its investigation into Gaetz,” and around four months before McCarthy was ousted with Gaetz’s help.
That was maybe his political high watermark. And now we sure do know a lot about a guy whose business card currently reads, “former House member and future OAN host.”
The House Ethics Committee report was the latest embarrassment for Gaetz, who has been on a swiftly descending trajectory since manifesting McCarthy’s firing. The investigation into Gaetz swirled around even then, through to his short stint as Donald Trump’s AG nominee.
NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery and Reese have our story on what we learned from the House report. To say the least, it’s not a good look. It “tells a story of young women who were paid small amounts for sex, of women who were allegedly impaired during these acts and of a Justice Department that failed a 17-year-old who allegedly had sex with a then-35-year-old congressman,” they write.
Much of what the report alleges has been part of the Gaetz narrative for a while now, as anyone who’s read Jose’s stuff for years knows. But the starkness of it is jarring. Does it change Gaetz’s story? OAN did not respond to a request for comment about how the report might affect his TV career. Is his political future closed off? There was talk of him running for governor, but we couldn’t find a Florida Republican bullish on the idea Monday. That all said, years of MAGAfication in politics have left some cynical about even a report as damning as this one having a major impact.
“MAGA lives in a post-shame, post-morality era,” Florida man Rick Wilson told NOTUS. “As long as Matt sufficiently owns the libs, he’ll be fine.”
—Evan McMorris-Santoro | Read the story.
What Do We Not Know About Matt?
The skin-crawlingest allegations in the report got the attention Monday. But there’s a lot included that raises additional troubling questions. One is about good, old-fashioned, corrupt practices.
The report found Gaetz had accounts on Coinbase and Robinhood in 2021 and did not report what he was doing with them to the House. Records from a Gaetz checking account showed more than 50 trades ranging from $100 (which would not trigger the House’s reporting requirements, which start at $1,000) to $3,105.62 (which obviously would).
Gaetz refused to give any details about these trades, the committee wrote. “[L]ongstanding practice is not to take enforcement action where a failure to file required disclosures is inadvertent,” the report reads, “but because of his lack of cooperation the Committee was unable to determine the reason the transactions were not disclosed.”
In a world where politicians’ stock trades have become a growing rallying cry for populists (like Gaetz, for example), the existence of unreported use of day-trading apps is eyebrow raising, to say the least.
—Evan McMorris-Santoro
Guess Who Said This About the Affordable Care Act in 2010?
“The new health care law has so much in it to help Californians get better and more affordable health care.”
Hint: It’s a Republican.
The Obamacare love doesn’t quite align with a second Trump administration that’s floated repealing the law. But somehow, that quote belongs to Mehmet Oz, Trump’s nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Turns out the doctor-turned-TV-host-turned-failed-Senate-candidate-turned-Trump-nominee can also boast Obamacare supporter on his résumé — not that he’d want to.
NOTUS’ Katherine Swartz reports that back in 2010, Oz was an advocate with The California Endowment, encouraging people to enroll in coverage. These days, Oz has changed his tune significantly, saying during his 2022 congressional run: “Obamacare caused havoc on our health care system.”
Just in Time for the Robot Takeover, History Will Be Kind to Biden
It’s fair to say this is not an especially forgiving moment for Joe Biden. His approval rating has continued to drop since the fall, and it’s hard to find a Democrat who remembers the final year or so of his presidency fondly. But that’s now. Years from now, the view will be different, many Democrats say. NOTUS’ Tinashe Chingarande spoke to more than 20 Democrats in the House and found a general consensus that Biden’s legacy will be a good one. Like, a really, really good one.
“One of the best in the last, at least, 50 years,” Rep. Adriano Espaillat said.
Not everyone thinks Washington, D.C., will be renamed Bidenton one day, however. “If people are going to celebrate those bits of legislation, they should include the Congress that got it done,” Rep. Dean Phillips said. Maybe Congresston, D.C., has a nice ring to it?
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- Here Come The Anti-Woke Venture Capitalists by David Jeans for Forbes
- The Tribal Lending Industry Offers Quick Cash Online at Outrageous Interest Rates. Here’s How It’s Survived. By Joel Jacobs and Megan O’Matz for ProPublica
- This just in: The red-state Senate Democrat goes extinct! By Ben Terris, Jesús Rodríguez and Kara Voght for The Washington Post
Be Social
Congress at Christmas? Sounds more horror than Hallmark.
Quick aside — tell me John Thune doesn't look like he would be cast in the Hallmark Movie about Congress at Christmas.
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 23, 2024
Tell Us Your Thoughts
Are there any other politicians who would fit in a Hallmark movie?
Send your thoughts to newsletters@notus.org.
Thank you for reading and see you next year! If you like this edition of the NOTUS newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please subscribe (it’s free!).