'I Didn't Give Up': Donald Trump Defends Nominating Matt Gaetz for Attorney General Despite Not Having the Votes to Confirm Him

President-elect Donald Trump claimed he never "gave up" on former Florida House Republican Matt Gaetz after receiving a wave of backlash for nominating him as the new Attorney General.

During his recent interview with Time Magazine following the publication naming him 2024's "Person of the Year," Trump was asked why he "gave up" on Gaetz so soon after he nominated him.

He claimed, "I didn’t give up on him. I talked to him, and I said, you know, Matt, I don't think this is worth the fight. He was there when I convinced five people to go that were hard no’s, but we want to speak to the President. And the beauty is that we won by so much. The mandate was massive. Somebody had 129 years in terms of the overall mandate. That's a lot of years, but people respected that."

"As an example, many places were thinking that they could go down and they could riot, make trouble, protest, on the election night. You know what happened? When the numbers started coming in, everyone just left. They left. I mean, you see signs of it, Washington, D.C., where people were gathered," he explained.

The former president was asked if he met with Gaetz and the five "hard-no" senators who wouldn't confirm the Florida representative.

He answered, "No, I called the senators, and my relationship with the Senate is very good. Many of them I endorsed. Many of them I got elected. If I didn't get involved in those races, those Senators would have lost. We wouldn't have the majority."

Senator Ted Cruz reportedly acted as the secret intermediary who informed the president-elect about the lack of Senate votes for Gaetz to get confirmed for attorney general. This revelation triggered a change in strategy for subsequent nominees, including Defense Secretary-designate Pete Hegseth.

Cruz, 53, met with Gaetz amid a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations, including an overlooked House Ethics Committee report accusing Gaetz of engaging in sexual activities with a minor in 2017.

Following this meeting, Cruz informed Trump the Florida Republican did not have enough support in the Senate.

As OK! previously reported, Gaetz decided to withdraw from consideration, acknowledging the distractions surrounding his confirmation.

"There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle. Thus, I'll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump's DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1," Gaetz wrote in a post on November 21.

According to the former congressman, his confirmation in the nomination process "was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/[JD] Vance Transition."

After Gaetz's withdrawal, Trump announced former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi would be his new pick.