Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was President-elect Donald Trump’s first pick to be attorney general before removing his name from consideration, will have his own show on far-right, pro-Trump One America News Network, Gaetz’s wife, Ginger Gaetz, and the network’s website confirmed Tuesday morning.
Gaetz’s next steps have been unclear after he stepped down from Congress and but then withdrew from consideration to be the next U.S. attorney general, facing the release of a House Ethics Committee report about past misconduct allegations. CNN first reported Gaetz would have his own show on OANN.
Gaetz’s wife said in a social media post that the show, called The Matt Gaetz Show, will launch in January.
OANN has a reputation of being friendly toward Trump, and settled a defamation lawsuit with voting machine company Smartmatic following the network’s 2020 election coverage. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Trump repeated baseless claims about voter fraud that pushed by the network, and OANN personality Chanel Rion amplified baseless claims that there was voter in the 2020 presidential election.
The network was dropped by DirecTV in 2022, although it is still carried on Verzion FIOS and other distributors, and in 2020, YouTube suspended OANN’s account for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy.
The new show comes just weeks after Gaetz resigned from Congress immdiately after Trump announced his intention to nominate him as Attorney General, putting in question the release of a report stemming from a yearslong House Ethics Committee investigation into whether he engaged in sexual miscondut. House Republicans ultimately voted to block the release of the report since Gaetz was no longer a member of Congress.
