Trump Goes Full Dictator in Latest Threat to GOP Senators
Matt Gaetz may be out of the running for attorney general, but Donald Trump still has plenty of horrific nominees he’s trying to push through Senate confirmation—and he’s threatening to unseat any Republican that gets in his way. Trump, JD Vance, and their transition team have been “playing hard ball” as they try to garner support for the president-elect’s nightmare slate of Cabinet nominees, according to ABC News’s Selina Wang. One Trump adviser told ABC News’s Jonathan Karl that the message to Republican senators had been, “If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary. That is all. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it.”“The president gets to decide his Cabinet, no one else” the adviser added. The Trump team’s newest threat makes it clear: No dissent among Republicans will be tolerated under the Trump administration. Technocrat billionaire Musk’s super PAC helped to fund Trump’s successful presidential run, and he could continue to fund challenges against any of the vulnerable Senate Republicans not willing to get in line behind the president-elect. Gaetz withdrew his nomination Thursday less than an hour after he was notified that CNN was planning to report that the House Ethics Committee had heard testimony about a second alleged sexual encounter between the Florida Republican and a 17-year-old girl. Still, Trump and his team are working to push through his other nominees who are allegedly sexual predators, such as Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth, who is embroiled in a rape allegation from 2017 that he seemingly kept from the Trump team, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who allegedly sexually assaulted his children’s former babysitter two decades ago.
Matt Gaetz may be out of the running for attorney general, but Donald Trump still has plenty of horrific nominees he’s trying to push through Senate confirmation—and he’s threatening to unseat any Republican that gets in his way.
Trump, JD Vance, and their transition team have been “playing hard ball” as they try to garner support for the president-elect’s nightmare slate of Cabinet nominees, according to ABC News’s Selina Wang.
One Trump adviser told ABC News’s Jonathan Karl that the message to Republican senators had been, “If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary. That is all. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it.”
“The president gets to decide his Cabinet, no one else” the adviser added.
The Trump team’s newest threat makes it clear: No dissent among Republicans will be tolerated under the Trump administration. Technocrat billionaire Musk’s super PAC helped to fund Trump’s successful presidential run, and he could continue to fund challenges against any of the vulnerable Senate Republicans not willing to get in line behind the president-elect.
Gaetz withdrew his nomination Thursday less than an hour after he was notified that CNN was planning to report that the House Ethics Committee had heard testimony about a second alleged sexual encounter between the Florida Republican and a 17-year-old girl.
Still, Trump and his team are working to push through his other nominees who are allegedly sexual predators, such as Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth, who is embroiled in a rape allegation from 2017 that he seemingly kept from the Trump team, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who allegedly sexually assaulted his children’s former babysitter two decades ago.
