This week, I reported new details about the investigations into former Representative Matt Gaetz, the Trump ally who was scrutinized — but never charged — over allegations of child sex trafficking.
The minor at the center of the investigations, I learned, was a 17-year-old girl who had just completed her junior year of high school, lived in and out of a homeless shelter, and was trying to earn money to pay for braces.
While federal prosecutors never charged Gaetz, investigators with the House Ethics Committee found a range of evidence that he had sex with the girl when he was a freshman in Congress.
The article was a rare look at the story of the girl and how her life was upended. But it also drove home a different point: how, despite the public release of that evidence last year, Gaetz has remained a fixture in Washington.
Tonight, I’ll explain how and why.
A damaged reputation, but only to a point
Gaetz, now 43, was elected to Congress the night Trump won the presidency in 2016, and he quickly fashioned himself as a fierce and outspoken defender of Trump.
While he served in Congress, he was investigated by the Justice Department over the alleged sex trafficking of a minor, but he was never charged, partially because prosecutors worried that the girl who said he had paid her for sex would have credibility problems on the witness stand.
A bipartisan House Ethics Committee investigation, however, found substantial evidence that in 2017, Gaetz had sex with the girl and paid her $400 for it. The committee made that information public last December.
Gaetz has asserted that he broke no laws, and he told The Times in a text message on Thursday, “I never had sex with this person.”
Last fall, the allegations about Gaetz’s ties to the girl helped sink Trump’s effort to make him attorney general. But the findings of the House Ethics Committee haven’t gotten Gaetz kicked out of Trump’s Washington, nor the broader MAGA movement.
Today, Gaetz hosts a show on the Trump-friendly One America News Network that routinely features prominent Republican politicians like Representatives James Comer of Kentucky and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Recent guests also included Trump administration officials like Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general.
And despite the fact that Gaetz withdrew himself from consideration for attorney general, he is still in Trump’s good graces.
A popular figure for a base in a bubble
To think about Gaetz another way, try this thought experiment: Why do many Republicans continue to embrace him and shrug off the allegations, even as some G.O.P. lawmakers and many of the party’s voters are pressuring the Trump administration for answers and public accountability on the convicted sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein?
For one thing, Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state-level charges that included soliciting a minor, faced federal sex trafficking charges before his death by suicide in jail in 2019, and was accused of abusing many girls and young women over many years. The allegations against Gaetz were not as serious, and he was never charged.
Another reason is Gaetz’s partisan identity as a fierce right-wing culture warrior, and the currency of popularity within the MAGA movement. He has also been helped by the fact that he comes from a party that nominated Trump for president after he had been found liable of sexual abuse and defamation.
To get an even better understanding of why Gaetz has been allowed to stay around, I reached out to Michael Gold, a congressional reporter for The Times who has written extensively about House Republicans and Trump’s political movement.
Gold said that based on his reporting, Gaetz had benefited from a range of factors, including the base’s warm feelings toward him. Those watching his show and listening to his podcast tend to be the most ardent Trump followers, and Republicans politicians and Trump allies want to tap into that.
“All these guys want a platform and a platform where they can reach the motivated Trump supporters, and people watching and listening to Gaetz shows are fully embracing Trump,” Gold said. “It’s the most pure form of the base and you can get to it through him.”
Gold said that Gaetz had also been helped by Trump’s long campaign to tarnish the investigations against him. That has primed his supporters to view any investigation into a Trump ally as politically motivated.
At the end of the day, the fractured media landscape allows figures like Gaetz to exist in areas where they can often avoid confronting uncomfortable subjects.
Gaetz has turned his show into such a space. In fact, one of the guests on his most recent episode was Chris Dorworth — the lobbyist who owned the home where, the 17-year-old girl testified, she had sex with Gaetz during a party, and was paid for it. (Dorworth has claimed that he was not home at the time, an assertion undercut by phone records that became part of litigation in the case.)
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The White House is clearly not the best at selling economic ideas.”
That’s Stephen Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Trump, acknowledging the president’s trouble in combating Americans’ unease about the high cost of living. That problem, which has persisted as Trump cozies up to Wall Street bigwigs, is contributing to a rift with his supporters who were counting on a more aggressively populist agenda, my colleagues Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Tyler Pager write.
More on America’s economic frustration
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Trump is facing a backlash from American consumers as higher costs from tariffs blunt wage gains.
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The Trump administration is preparing broad exemptions to certain tariffs in an effort to ease elevated food prices that have provoked anxiety for American consumers.
The Moment
The Oval glow-up continues
On Monday, the New York Times photographer Doug Mills noticed something on President Trump’s desk that he hadn’t seen before: a gleaming Rolex desk clock, engraved with Trump’s name and the numbers of his two presidencies.
It’s the kind of addition that fits right in with the gold leaf and luxe renovations Trump has added to the White House — and one that contrasts sharply with the cuts his administration has made to services for the poor, as I pointed out this week, as well as his ramped-up messaging about affordability.
The clock appeared as the White House was working to negotiate a new tariff deal with Switzerland after imposing a rate of 39 percent earlier this year. A team of Swiss business leaders, including the chief executive of Rolex, met Trump at the White House this month. A White House official told me the watch was a gift from the company (as the online watch magazine Hodinkee reported earlier this week).
The new deal, which was announced today, lowers the tariff on Swiss goods to 15 percent. You can start your Christmas Rolex shopping now!
Retired, but not happy about it
My colleague Reid Epstein has been writing about the Democratic gerontocracy. This week, he checked in with an aging Democrat-turned-independent who did retire — but who keeps poking his head into the spotlight.
If you are thinking about running for president in 2028, Joe Manchin would like to help.
Manchin, 78, the former West Virginia senator, is still thinking about running himself, but he acknowledged in an interview this week that the realities of running as an independent candidate mean he is more likely to be useful in an advisory role.
“There’s a lot of young, aggressive, good people with good intentions that love the country and have the youth and vigor to do it, and I’m going to be looking for those people,” Manchin said. “Now, can I mentor? Can I help a little bit? Can I encourage? Will I be a cheerleader? Absolutely.”
Manchin, who said he was “not doing well at retirement,” left the Senate after the 2024 election. He said he’d like to see a governor take the White House in 2028, and mentioned Govs. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gavin Newsom of California among those he thinks are doing a good job during the Trump era.
Manchin, who has always loved generating attention for his heterodox political views, said he felt “homeless” politically because of Democrats’ left turn on social issues and President Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party.
“There’s a lot of good people out here that are looking for a pathway forward,” he said. “They want someone who’s got enough guts to say: ‘Listen, this is not normal. Nothing like this has ever happened before. And we shouldn’t be hating each other.’”
Take our Quiz
This question comes from a recent On Politics newsletter. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.)
On Sunday, seven Democratic senators and one independent voted with Republicans to advance legislation to end the longest government shutdown in American history. What is their combined age?
Reid J. Epstein, Taylor Robinson and Ama Sarpomaa contributed reporting.
Michael S. Schmidt is an investigative reporter for The Times covering Washington. His work focuses on tracking and explaining high-profile federal investigations.
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