Rep. Matt Gaetz offered up a helping of red meat to the Republican base on Night One of the GOP convention, warning in remarks geared toward motivating President Trump’s loyal voters that the Democratic nominee could not be trusted to keep the United States safe and prosperous.
The Florida Republican, among Trump’s most committed lieutenants on Capitol Hill, urged voters to set a high bar for leadership ahead of the Nov. 3 elections and avoid settling for the “bad decisions by basement-dwelling Joe Biden.” Gaetz said the president “has what it takes” to “raise an army of patriots” to keep the country safe, utilizing the sort of nationalistic rhetoric Trump often uses to frame the values that undergird his agenda.
“I’m speaking from an auditorium emptier than Joe Biden’s daily schedule,” Gaetz said Monday as he opened his remarks.
“Settle for Biden — that’s the hashtag promoted by AOC and the socialists,” Gaetz added, referring to socialist Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who endorsed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in her party’s presidential primary. “The woke-topians will settle because they will make him an extra in a movie written, produced, and directed by others. It’s a horror film.”
Gaetz’s speech during a largely virtual Republican convention sought, as did others who spoke on the first night of the convention, to rebut the contention by Biden during last week’s Democratic gathering that Trump is a failed leader. Trump often refers to Biden as “Slow Joe.” The president claims the Democratic nominee has used the pandemic as an excuse to take refuge in the basement of his Delaware home and avoid the rigors of the campaign, contrasting himself as physically formidable and mentally sharp.
Gaetz echoed that message in his remarks.
“Donald Trump, like all builders, is a visionary,” Gaetz said.
Gaetz, a second-term congressman from the Florida Panhandle, hails from an establishment Republican family but has embraced Trump with the gusto of the president’s loyal, anti-Washington political base. The 38-year-old regularly jabs at Trump’s critics, employing the same provocative tactics on social media as the president. Such behavior led the House Ethics Committee to investigate him for witness tampering after he tweeted about former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen prior to his testifying on Capitol Hill.
The committee determined that Gaetz “did not violate witness tampering and obstruction of Congress laws.” However, the congressman was admonished for the incident, with House Ethics saying that he failed to meet the standards by which “Members of the House should govern themselves.”
Gaetz rarely breaks with Trump on policy, although he voted with House Democrats last year to limit the president’s ability to wage war against Iran.
Madison Dibble contributed to this report.
