I don’t really know him, other than his public persona.” And we have the two faces of Oklahoma’s Markwayne Mullin, who concedes that while he and Gaetz have “had our differences” in the past, “I completely trust President Trump’s decisionmaking on this one.

Senate Democrats are rushing to confirm Biden’s final nominees for federal judge positions before the party loses the chamber majority and Donald Trump returns to office in January. There are currently 45 judicial vacancies, and the Senate has 20 days left in session.

Senators and senators-elect barely had time to elect new leadership on Wednesday, giving South Dakota Sen. John Thune the role of majority leader, before that leadership was put to the test with the prospect of confirming controversial former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., as the next United States attorney general.

In seismic move Wednesday afternoon, Donald Trump announced the stunning decision to make the supremely unqualified, deeply compromised, and unfit Matt Gaetz his attorney general, placing in charge of the Justice Department a man who until last year was under criminal investigation for sex trafficking by the department he would lead.