A disgraced MAGA ex-lawmaker used an ableist slur on Thursday during the annual CPAC conference to describe people who disagree with President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.“I come from the wing of the Republican Party that is only loyal to one nation, and that is the United States of America,” Gaetz declared. After describing the long delays at airports, he denounced Democrats and their supporters for backing the ongoing partial government shutdown.“Not paying TSA and our cybersecurity professionals and those protecting America’s networks and critical infrastructure — not paying those people and shutting them down — is not legislative strategy,” Gaetz said. “It is re——”President Donald Trump almost appointed Matt Gaetz as his attorney general; indeed, the former lawmaker resigned as a House member from Florida for that reason. Yet ever since he was disgraced due to sexual misconduct allegations, Gaetz has stopped being a potential Trump administration member and been relegated to the role of booster.“I stand with President Trump,” Gaetz told CPAC on Thursday. “The Senate should convene immediately, reopen the government, and pass the Save America Act for voter ID and proof of citizenship in every election in this country. Demanding an ID to vote is not racist. Actually, saying that demanding an ID to vote is racist is what’s racist.”He added, “It is so nice to live in the era of free speech again under President Trump and Vice President Vance. It felt like every moment in the Biden years, if we said a true thing about vaccine side effects, or indicated that we supported building a wall, or the rights of gun owners, that somehow we were labeled domestic terrorists — a threat to our nation.” Gaetz then proceeded to praise FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who since being appointed by Trump has threatened to pull people off the air for criticizing Trump and the Iran war, although Gaetz acknowledged his own reservations about the conflict.“While I may not agree with the likes of Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, or Mike Huckabee that we have some sort of near-slavish loyalty to a country in a faraway land, I would walk across hot coals arm in arm with those individuals to stop the Democrats from turning America into a more transsexual version of Venezuela,” Gaetz declared.Although Gaetz managed to move the media spotlight away from his scandal by withdrawing his name from consideration as attorney general, the issue continues to garner attention.”A flurry of news reports late last year revealed how members of the Ethics Committee were fighting over how to handle the Gaetz situation — insider information that spilled out into the public domain,” Politico’s Hailey Fuchs wrote earlier this month. “Finger-pointing abounded as to who was leaking the private details, including the fact that there was a split secret vote on whether to release the Gaetz report. These events also obliterated the longstanding presumption of nonpartisanship inside the (Ethics) Committee, which is the only panel evenly split between Democrats and Republicans.”Fuchs added, “(Rep. Michael) Guest called the report’s release a ‘dangerous departure with potentially catastrophic consequences.’ Speaker Mike Johnson had said he did not want the report to be public.”Gaetz was accused of paying multiple women for sex, including at least one minor.
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