WASHINGTON — Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicted that President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz to be attorney general would be rejected by the Republican Senate next year.
“Gaetz won’t get confirmed, everybody knows that,” McCarthy said in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the Barclays Asia Forum in Singapore on Thursday.
Gaetz, a Florida congressman who resigned from the House hours after Trump announced that he would nominate him to run the Justice Department, orchestrated McCarthy’s ouster as speaker last year.
“Doesn’t matter,” McCarthy said of the nomination’s prospects. “It’s a good deflection.”
McCarthy, the former congressman from Bakersfield, praised Trump’s other picks, especially Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of State. He said the president-elect had learned from his earlier experience in the White House and would hit the ground running in part thanks to the work of Howard Lutnick, the chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, on the transition.
He also praised Trump for tapping Elon Musk, a longtime friend of McCarthy and the world’s richest person, to help lead a new office to overhaul government.
“Elon was texting me this morning. Think about having the brain of Elon Musk to sacrifice his time away from his businesses to help every single American make government more efficient, more accountable,” McCarthy said.
“Elon doesn’t benefit from government, America has benefited from Elon,” he added. “He’s a Thomas Edison. He doesn’t care about wealth.”
The former speaker also predicted Trump’s tariff threats could result in opening markets for American goods and promote fairer trade with countries like China.
“He’s got a big agenda,” McCarthy said, adding that Trump is better prepared to govern than he was eight years ago. “I think you’ll be shocked by the first 100 days.”
McCarthy also said the president-elect could deal with the war in Ukraine, repeating a Trump argument that Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t invade during his first administration.
He added that foreign leaders had contacted him “wanting to talk to President Trump.”
Dennis writes for Bloomberg News.