So instead he ensured that his loyal soldier would get publicly humiliated. Brilliant.My general sense of things is that Trump never really wanted Gaetz as his AG and never had any illusions that he would be confirmed. Gaetz is a very polarizing figure, even within the GOP. And getting 50 senators to confirm him was probably not realistic.
I think Gaetz was looking for a way to bow out of the House and save face. He knew the ethics report was coming and he knew it was going to have some pretty embarrassing stuff in it. He hoped that by resigning from the House it would prevent the report from going public.
For his part, Trump rewarded his loyal soldier by floating Gaetz as his AG nominee in order to give him a dignified reason to resign from the House, knowing that Gaetz would never get confirmed and would end up taking a job at OAN or one of the other conservative channels.
With friends like that…