Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who lost both his House seat and his role as Donald Trump’s attorney general thanks to allegations that he sex trafficked minors, has landed his post-Congress gig: a prime-time show on the far-right propaganda network One America News.
Gaetz has always prioritized being the center of attention over actually governing, plotting stunts he knew would get him air time on cable news shows. In 2021, Gaetz revealed that he had been in talks with OAN, Fox News, and Newsmax about possible jobs at their companies.
Now he has his own program, creatively named "The Matt Gaetz Show" which will air weeknights at 9 PM Eastern, competing with Sean Hannity on Fox News.
“His knack for connecting with grassroots Americans and shaking up the status quo makes him a dynamic and timely addition to OAN’s team,” the company said in a statement.
“OAN is blazing a trail in media, embracing not just traditional news but the platforms where Americans are going—streaming, apps, podcasts and social media,” Gaetz said in the release. “I couldn’t be more thrilled to join OAN’s forward-thinking team and be part of this revolutionary expansion.”
What Gaetz leaves out of his statement is that OAN prioritizes streaming, apps, podcasts, and social media because it literally doesn't air on any major cable carriers. In 2022, Verizon became the final major cable carrier to drop the pro-Trump channel, following DirecTV—starving the network of both viewership and 90% of its funds.
Additionally, OAN is insane. In 2019, the Daily Beast reported that Kristian Brunovich Rouz, one of the network's reporters, simultaneously worked for the Kremlin-owned Sputnik that was part of Russia's election meddling in 2016. But the channel rose to prominence one year later when Trump became one of its biggest fans, as the channel is basically a 24/7 lovefest for Trump and his policies.
Devin Gordon of The Atlantic wrote of OAN in 2020:
“One America News, or OAN, or OANN—whichever you like, it’s all the same thing—is Donald Trump’s favorite cable-news channel. Mostly this is because One America News seems to agree with Trump about everything, in the same way a dog agrees to chase its own tail. Every day, Trump does something that catches OAN’s attention, and it’s off to the races. He’s part ringleader, part muse. If you’re wondering just how deep the fealty goes, consider this actual headline that ran on oann.com at the end of March, when Trump was still in his denial phase about the coronavirus: “President Handling Emergency Well in First Term.” So well, in fact, we should just give him that second term right now, wouldn’t you say? Every so often, Trump and Fox News have a lover’s spat, and this is when he really turns on the charm toward OAN—retweeting its praise of him, calling on its correspondents at press briefings two days in a row. Or, to put the relationship in tabloid terms familiar to Trump: He treats OAN like his sidepiece, and Fox News like a future ex-wife.”
Indeed, OAN was instrumental in pushing Trump’s baseless lies that the election that year had been stolen from him. The channel ended up settling lawsuits from both Dominion Voting Services and Smartmatic, after its on-air talent baselessly accused the election technology companies of fraud.
OAN was still pushing the baseless fraud allegations well into 2021, with an anchor calling for tens of thousands of people to be executed for committing voter fraud.
“There's a real fascist vibe to this One America News personality calmly calling for the execution of potentially tens of thousands of Americans over fake voter fraud claims,” Washington Post media reporter Will Sommer said of the clip at the time.
In 2022, after the network sued DirecTV for dropping the channel, comedian John Oliver described the channel’s on-air talent as a “ragtag band of fascists.”
”I do get that they (OAN) are upset here, just as I get that they are an intellectually bankrupt organization full of opportunistic grifters who've done nothing but make this country a worse place,” Oliver said in a segment on “Last Week Tonight” about the channel being dropped by DirecTV. “But perhaps this isn't the time for that and perhaps I am sorry for taking joy in their misfortune and kicking them when they are so clearly down. But on the other hand, perhaps I am not.”
As for Gaetz, it’s unclear how much he’s getting paid for his OAN show, or if the House Ethics Committee report about whether Gaetz sex trafficked minors would compromise his hosting gig. So far, Republicans on the House Ethics Committee have been blocking the release of the report to help shield the former member from accountability.
For those who are interested in watching an accused sexual predator spewing right-wing insanity, his program is set to begin in January, according to Gaetz’s wife, Ginger.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a video clip.
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