It’s been a good week for Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. He avoided getting duped by comedian Sasha Baron Cohen, he absolutely wrecked a Washington Post reporter during a game of Madden NFL 17, and, most importantly, he walked back his past appearance on InfoWars.
The boy politician of the Trump era, it seems, is maturing as his freshman term draws to a close.
Gaetz said he regretted giving InfoWars an interview, telling the Hill that “upon further reflection, I think that the things that Alex Jones has said and done are so hurtful to so many people that a member of Congress should not grace that platform and legitimize it, and I would not go back.”
Jones, of course, is the conspiracy theorist who believes that demonic forces have taken over political candidates, that the government is turning frogs gay, and that school shootings are fake. Gaetz joined him for a comparably mild interview in January. And when I asked the congressman in February why he did the show, he laid out a broad policy for media appearances.
To maintain “agency over the discourse,” Gaetz had two broad rules. First, he said he only does live interviews. Second, he said he won’t go on unless given the same volume as the host. Gaetz admitted that Jones had said “horrible things,” things that “invalidate him as a credible source.” But, at least back in February, the conspiracy theorist hadn’t violated the congressman’s two rules.
“If people are going there to get information and I have an opportunity in a live environment to provide facts that I stand behind then I’m willing to go on a platform like that,” Gaetz told me back in February. “I’m not willing to do it where my content can be misconstrued to serve a bad purpose like it would on Russia Today.”
Five months later, Gaetz has decided to add InfoWars to his blacklist. “My work on the Judiciary Committee,” he explained to me Friday, “has made me more aware of the InfoWars content than when I appeared previously in a very standard and respectful interview.”
Earlier in the week, Gaetz cross-examined a representative from Facebook about violent pages on the platform. “While I unconditionally support the First Amendment,” he stressed, “inciting violence against others due to their political affiliation is not constitutionally-protected speech.”
Gaetz asked Facebook repeatedly to look into a page which called for violence against Republicans and the NRA. At one point, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., interrupted to ask Facebook to “follow up about Alex Jones and InfoWars if certain content has been taken down when they are taunting the students from Parkland.” Gaetz thanked Raskin, adding that he “would concur with his sentiments.”
“I was broadly agreeing with his sentiments,” Gaetz explained, “that the content review standards seem very open to subjectivity.”
