Former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s abrupt withdrawal of his bid to be attorney general on Thursday could be bad news for another of President-elect Donald Trump’s picks: Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth’s nomination for Defense secretary is facing headwinds over seven-year-old allegations of sexual assault, although he was never charged. But Hegseth so far had been overshadowed by Gaetz, a flame-throwing congressional ally with numerous foes in both parties who faced his own misconduct allegations, including that he engaged in sex with a minor.

With Gaetz stepping out of contention, scrutiny could quickly shift to Hegseth after revelations that the Army veteran and former Fox News personality paid his accuser and the release on Thursday of a 22-page police report of the alleged 2017 incident in Monterey, California. Hegseth denies wrongdoing.

Indeed, Hegseth “could hide behind Gaetz” because the former lawmaker’s misconduct allegations are more far-reaching and have been in the public eye longer, a person familiar with the Trump transition said. But now, the person said, Hegseth “is at the front of the line.” The person was granted anonymity to speak candidly about Hegseth’s chances of confirmation.

There’s no sign that Republicans, four of whom would need to defect to sink Hegseth, are about to abandon the Pentagon pick. But some top Democrats, who argue Hegseth is unqualified in addition to his personal issues, are counting on closer scrutiny of his nomination.

“The spotlight will fall very heavily on him,” predicted Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “The combination of Gaetz’s withdrawal and the latest reports on the Monterey incident, I think, will dramatically increase scrutiny of the SecDef nominee.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) argues the outlook is different from just a few hours earlier, when Gaetz was still in the picture.

Gaetz’s withdrawal “removes the distraction that maybe Trump world thought he would provide for some of the other nominees,” Blumenthal said.

The Trump team, meanwhile, appeared to be circling the wagons Thursday as Hegseth and Vice President-elect JD Vance met with Republicans on Capitol Hill, most of whom are close allies.

Hegseth also offered his defense following the meetings, telling reporters that he “was completely cleared” in the police investigation.

The office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is defending a reported deal where Democrats ceded four appeals court nominations in favor of confirming more of President Joe Biden’s lower-level federal judicial appointees.

“The trade was four circuit nominees — all lacking the votes to get confirmed — for more than triple the number of additional judges moving forward,” a spokesperson for Schumer said Thursday.

Democrats have confirmed 221 of Biden’s picks for the federal courts after the Senate overwhelmingly approved Sharad Desai for a federal judicial post in Arizona on Thursday. Republicans have tried throughout the week to erect procedural hurdles to slow confirmation of more Biden judicial nominees.

President-elect Donald Trump has urged GOP senators to do everything possible to block further confirmation of judges nominated by Biden, despite Democratic control the Senate floor. The chamber will vote on the nominations of seven judicial nominees once lawmakers return after Thanksgiving.

It’s worth noting the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the nominations of six more judicial picks, including former Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.), on Thursday. Those selections are expected to get chamber consideration.

Ursula Perano contributed to this report.

Sen. John Fetterman mocked Matt Gaetz Thursday for withdrawing as Donald Trump’s attorney general pick, saying sarcastically that he “didn’t see that coming.”

“I heard a rumor that they’re going to issue a new silver dollar in his honor because he had to withdraw,” Fetterman joked. “OK, so can we freak out about that next?”

Gaetz announced Thursday he was withdrawing, saying in a social media post his nomination had become a distraction.

When the president-elect announced he tapped Gaetz to be his next attorney general last week, Fetterman called it “god-tier-level trolling.”

“People have the opportunity and they can freak out over anything and respond and if they want to do that you better pace yourself though because it’s not even Thanksgiving,” Fetterman told reporters Thursday. “We don’t have to react and take unserious things so seriously that the world is going to spin off its axis the way it is right now.”

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

Republican senators expect Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to soon make the rounds on Capitol Hill as he seeks to win their votes for his confirmation to be Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said Thursday Kennedy was likely to journey to the Hill in the coming days, suggesting he’d meet with GOP senators after the Thanksgiving break.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the top Republican on the HELP Committee, confirmed there has been “some preliminary reach out” to organize the meetings. Cassidy is also a member of the Finance Committee that will ultimately decide whether to send Kennedy’s nomination to the full Senate for a vote.

Kennedy has a smoother route to confirmation than several other Trump picks. Democrats are sure to attack his vaccine skepticism and embrace of Covid-19 conspiracy theories. But his more urgent task will be to calm concerns among GOP senators about his past support for abortion rights and reassure those from farm states concerned about his desire to overhaul the U.S. food system, which could send shockwaves through the agriculture sector.

Kennedy wants to ban certain pesticides, soybean products, corn syrup and other processed items from the current U.S. food supply as part of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a member of the Finance and Agriculture Committees, told reporters earlier this week that he’s pushing for a meeting with Kennedy before any confirmation hearing, citing some apprehension about Kennedy’s views on food production.

“I’m willing to have a discussion with him and find out where he’s coming from,” Grassley told reporters Tuesday. “But I may have to spend a lot of time educating him about agriculture, and I’m willing to do that.”

House Democrats vowed to press forward with their plan to force the release of a long-awaited report into Matt Gaetz even after he withdrew from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general.

But there are early signs that House Republicans, some of whom had indicated prior to Gaetz’s withdrawal that they supported the Democratic-led effort, are no longer on board. And Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Ethics panel, told CBS Thursday that Gaetz’s withdrawal “should end the discussion of whether or not the Ethics Committee should continue to move forward in this matter.”

Democrats introduced a measure on Wednesday that would theoretically force a House floor vote that would make the Ethics panel release the report. It’s still unclear whether that vote will be permitted under the House rules, but the vote could potentially occur as soon as the House returns from its Thanksgiving break in early December.

“While I welcome the news that Matt Gaetz is withdrawing from consideration for Attorney General, it remains important that the Gaetz report be made available to the American people,” Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), one of the Democratic sponsors of the effort, said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who introduced a similar measure, said he planned to press ahead, too.

Prior to Gaetz’s decision to withdraw from consideration, at least five House Republicans said they were prepared to support those efforts to force the report’s release. One GOP lawmaker who indicated they were planning to vote for the resolution, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said it’s “not a factor now.”

“Many of my colleagues told me they were voting yes” before Gaetz withdrew, the lawmaker said, adding that they would still vote for the resolutions if Gaetz indicates he’s returning for the next Congress.

It’s still unclear whether Gaetz could return to the House in January, since he was reelected in November, and there have been rumors that he plans to run for Florida governor in 2026, with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis term-limited. Gaetz did not immediately respond to a request for comment but has previously denied any intentions to mount a gubernatorial bid.

A resignation letter that he submitted to Speaker Mike Johnson and DeSantis had said he did not intend to serve again in the next Congress, though it’s unclear if he can reverse course now that he’s withdrawn from consideration for attorney general. A congressional aide indicated that Gaetz’s membership status for the 119th Congress is effectively up to his home state, telling POLITICO: “The official roll for the 119th Congress will be prepared with the Certificates of Election received from the States.”

Democrats are still trying to iron out if they can actually force a vote, and some Republicans are arguing their colleagues can’t trigger a vote on a report that is not a final Ethics Committee product. Guest said the report was still in draft form on Wednesday, though two people familiar with the matter disputed that assertion.

Democrats had argued the report needed to be released because Gaetz was up for the highest-ranking law enforcement position in the country, though other lawmakers may find the argument less persuasive now that Gaetz is out of contention.

Another unresolved question: whether the motions introduced by Casten and Cohen are eligible for the fast-track legislative process that would force a vote on the floor. Ethics panel attorneys are in the process of discussing parliamentary issues with the two lawmakers, according to a person familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The Democratic effort has already sparked one vow of procedural revenge from Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), who told POLITICO on Thursday that he would introduce his own privileged resolution to try to force the release of other Ethics Committee reports after Congress returns from the break in December. Bishop declined to say which members he will target but smiled when asked if it was Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).

“If we’re going to release the report, let’s release a lot of reports. Let’s go for full transparency,” added Bishop, who is retiring at the end of this term.

Meanwhile, it’s not just Republicans who are signaling they’re ready to move on from Gaetz.

“My interest in him, in his political future, our government’s future, is diminished dramatically by this decision. So there are lots of other things we need to do,” said Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

Jordain Carney, Olivia Beavers, Ursula Perano and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and disparaged his supporters on his podcast in 2016.

Kennedy, who ultimately backed Trump in the 2024 election after dropping his own independent bid, is now a newly selected cabinet member to lead Trump’s Health and Human Services Department — but the old comments reflect the fact that Kennedy was a lifelong Democrat before joining forces with the Republican president-elect.

In the now-eight-year-old radio show broadcasts, first reported by CNN, Kennedy said Trump was stoking fear on the campaign trail with his rhetoric and compared him to Hitler, the former-segregationist Gov. George Wallace and other divisive leaders. On another episode from 2016, Kennedy also said that Trump was unlike Hitler because “Hitler had like a plan, you know, Hitler was interested in policy.” And Trump did not, he said.

Kennedy also praised then-Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi’s description of Trump supporters on the show, reading from an article of his: “We may not have that many outright Nazis in America but we have plenty of cowards and bootlickers.” (Taibbi, who now writes for his own Substack, has since made more sympathetic statements about Trump, including that he has been the victim of Democrats’ use of “lawfare.”)

Kennedy recently said that such inflammatory rhetoric, including comparing Trump to Hitler, “divides our nation and inspires assassins,” in a post on X this October.

Kennedy’s old comments echo similar statements from now Vice President-elect JD Vance, who also compared Trump to the Nazi leader but reversed his viewpoint. Kennedy is now distancing himself from the past comments, with a similar rationale also used by Vance.

“Like many Americans, I allowed myself to believe the mainstream media’s distorted, dystopian portrait of President Trump. I no longer hold this belief and now regret having made those statements,” he said in a statement to CNN. His spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

But throughout Kennedy’s longshot independent bid for the White House this year, Kennedy blasted Trump over his first-term cabinet picks, his divisiveness and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

“President Trump said he was going to drain the swamp, then he brings John Bolton in to run the NSA. That is like putting a swamp creature in charge of draining the swamp,” Kennedy said in an interview with Ben Shapiro.

“Why do you give him a second term if he’s messed it up so badly the first time?” Kennedy said to Shapiro. “He said he was going to do that the first time.”

Kennedy also attacked Trump’s other cabinet members in interviews and in his stump speech, as well as laying out a list of Trump’s first-term personnel picks that he took issue with in a post on X in June, about two months before his endorsement of Trump.

During an April interview on CNN, the political scion also called Trump a “threat to democracy” because of his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Now, Kennedy is poised to hold a potentially powerful role in the next Trump administration, pending his confirmation to his cabinet post.

While on the campaign trail as an independent, Kennedy said that he wouldn’t take any cabinet position in a potential Trump second term in August during a local CBS interview. Less than two weeks later he’d dropped out and endorsed Trump.

As uncertainty mounts about whether the new Republican-controlled Senate will sign off on some of President-elect Donald Trump’s more controversial Cabinet picks, a top conservative grassroots group is dialing up the pressure.

Turning Point Action, the group spearheaded by prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk, plans to hold rallies in states where they believe GOP senators may need extra “encouragement” to approve nominees like Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That list also initially included Rep. Matt Gaetz, who Trump tapped for attorney general, though the Florida Republican on Thursday announced he was withdrawing from consideration, explaining that his confirmation process had become a “distraction.”

A handful of Trump’s nominees, ranging from top defense to health positions, have drawn bipartisan pushback, even as Trump, his Vice President-elect JD Vance and other top allies are lobbying for their confirmations. Some, like Gaetz and Hegseth, have been dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct, while Gabbard and Kennedy, who were both Democrats until recently, have histories of policy positions that have raised concerns by some traditional Republicans.

On Thursday, Kirk announced on his show, according to a pre-recorded copy of the audio obtained by POLITICO, the states that Turning Point is eyeing visits as part of their efforts to apply pressure to the Senate GOP.

Kirk said the initiative will start as an “encouragement campaign,” and will “activate into a pressure campaign for red-state senators.”

“We will bring this roadshow, on the ground by the way, potentially to Rapid City, South Dakota; to Sioux Falls, South Dakota; to Boise, Idaho; to Fayetteville, Arkansas; to Topeka, Kansas; to Tupelo, Mississippi. You picking up what I’m throwing down?”

Kirk added that if senators “publicly come out and say that you’re going to support President Trump’s Cabinet, then there’s no reason for us to come to your home state.”

A website that the organization launched includes lists of GOP senators who voted to confirm various nominees made by President Joe Biden, in line with historic precedent of some degree of bipartisan support for a new president’s cabinet selections.

Kirk, who oversaw a get-out-the-vote effort for Trump, has been spotted around Mar-a-Lago as transition meetings have taken place.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, who pursued a sweeping and controversial agenda as Wall Street’s chief overseer over the last three-plus years, plans to step down on Jan. 20, the agency said Thursday.

His departure will clear the way for President-elect Donald Trump to install his yet-to-be-named pick to lead the top U.S. financial markets regulator.

Gensler’s exit will cap one of the most memorable periods in the SEC’s history, as the 67-year-old veteran regulator sought to enact a slate of ambitious rules and pursue lawsuits that led to high-profile clashes with both the traditional financial world and the cryptocurrency industry.

Among the rules enacted under Gensler were measures seeking to shore up the U.S. Treasury market and to force corporate America to tell investors about climate-related risks. His agenda also included rules aimed at shedding light on the more opaque corners of finance, such as the massive private funds market, as well as a contentious push to bring crypto squarely under the SEC’s authority.

“The Securities and Exchange Commission is a remarkable agency,” Gensler said in a statement. “The staff and the Commission are deeply mission-driven, focused on protecting investors, facilitating capital formation, and ensuring that the markets work for investors and issuers alike. The staff comprises true public servants. It has been an honor of a lifetime to serve with them on behalf of everyday Americans and ensure that our capital markets remain the best in the world.”

Gensler plans to step down at noon on Jan. 20, according to the SEC.