An aristocrat, Donald Trump is not.
Clearly, that is the takeaway from the botched nomination of Matt Gaetz to the position of attorney general. It showed Trump’s limitations rather than his ultimate control over GOP allies. Even though he won the popular vote by a razor-thin margin, the president-elect has been acting as if he is unstoppable and has a historic mandate, thus the short-lived nomination serves as an unfortunate lesson for him.
In a nutshell, “checks and balances work,” as law professor Eugene Volokh put it at UCLA.
Senate Republicans’ opposition to Gaetz’s nomination demonstrated that Trump still has some checks and balances, however weak, that can prevent him from abusing his power to subjugate Congress, gain unchecked authority from the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, and implement his agenda as he pleases.
According to Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California-Berkeley School of Law, “It shows that Donald Trump cannot get anything he wants.”
It would be a mistake to generalise about the opposition that Trump might encounter with future nominees based on the Gaetz fiasco, according to Chemerinsky and others. Gaetz was so infamously hated and tainted by legal and political scandals, and he was running for a position with extraordinary power.
In fact, if Trump is able to muscle through his other contentious candidates, the lesson may be that Trump is more unchecked by Congress than ever, said Edward Foley, an Ohio State University constitutional law specialist.
“The Senate will have come up short as measured by the Senators’ own views about the nominees and their capacity to withstand presidential pressure,” Foley said.
Still, Trump has always worked to avoid even the idea that his power, particularly over Republicans, has limits. He won the presidential election just 16 days ago and is at the height of his influence, unfurling unusual nominations for powerful government offices at lightning speed. And he has threatened to open his second term with a fusillade of executive branch action, from mass deportations to pardons for Jan. 6 rioters to easing the wind-down of the Russia-Ukraine war. And he is also anticipated to rely on the attorney general to cut out the last remains of any lingering probes into his own alleged misdeeds.
And in recent days, Trump appeared to lean into the Gaetz nomination despite realising its hard climb. He allegedly called senators and asked them to have an open mind, and he sent his Vice President-elect JD Vance to Capitol Hill to persuade senators with qualms about Gaetz.
The inability to confirm Gaetz — possibly his most ardent loyalist in Washington — to a post that carries substantial influence over Trump’s own legal fate is not the plan Trump dreamed up.
Sen. Chuck Grassley said the experience illustrates that Trump’s capacity to rush through difficult nominations is roughly the same as it was for Bill Clinton, who nominated three attorneys general before getting one confirmed