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A former spokesperson piled onto the anti-nomination rhetoric asserting the president-elect was “drunk on power” and that there was no “strategizing” to his cabinet picks.

“I think it’s kind of hilarious, all this discourse out there about Donald Trump is playing 4D chess.”

(Video: MSNBC)

After joining a slew of disaffected former employees who opted for the establishment pick by backing Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump, a Jan. 6 resignee rejected some of the narratives around now-former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R).

Appearing on MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports,” one-time deputy press secretary for the Trump administration Sarah Matthews pushed back on the idea that the president-elect was making “controversial” selections as part of a broader plan, insisting instead that he was riding his election mandate.

Following a clip where former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told Bloomberg he believed Gaetz’s nomination for Attorney General was a “deflection” and that he would “let it stand at that,” Jansing asked the former press secretary, “So if you have multiple controversial nominees, could this be a deflection? Again, based on the time you spent with Donald Trump and in his orbit, is that the kind of strategizing you think he might do?”

“I think it’s kind of hilarious, all this discourse out there about, ‘Oh, Donald Trump is playing 4D chess. He’s putting up a crazy nominee, knowing that it will fail so that way then he can put up his second choice and the Senate will have no choice but to confirm them,’” she replied. “That’s not what’s happening. He knows that he is drunk on power right now because he feels like he was given a mandate by winning the popular vote.”

“He has control of both chambers of Congress, and he doesn’t have to worry about running for re-election,” Matthews continued. “So, in this term, he wants to put up the people that he wants. Okay? So, it is not some 4D game of chess that he’s playing of trying to put out a sacrificial lamb like a Matt Gaetz for AG and so that way his other nominees can squeak through.”

Matthews had previously stated her opinion that along with Gaetz, former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were “unqualified & extreme picks” for their respective nominations to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Health and Human Services.

While she went on to predict that Gaetz would not be confirmed, but that many of Trump’s other picks would clear their Senate confirmations, she also pushed back on arguments that nominees under the Biden-Harris administration had been unqualified like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg who’d previously been mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

“I keep seeing this take. It’s stupid. Nominating someone unqualified for Transportation is QUITE different than nominating an anti-vaxxer for HHS, a Putin/Assad apologist for ODNI, and someone accused of sex trafficking for AG,” she posted on X, seemingly countering her own claim to their being “unqualified” to favor coordinated attacks against the nominees.

Kevin Haggerty
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