- [Matt Gaetz] The conditions in Haiti
are deplorable, they are disgusting.
I mean, it's everywhere you look in Haiti,
it's sheet metal and garbage-
- [Narrator] That's Matt Gaetz,
What a football helmet would look like as a person.
Gaetz was born in Fort Walton Beach,
Florida, in 1982.
Although he spent his formative years
in a town called Niceville,
Gaetz falls short when it comes to being nice.
He's been widely criticized for being
Trump's loudest cheerleader.
But before he was championing the former
steak salesman's efforts,
he was but a little rich boy,
who had more in common with the former
steak salesman than just red meat ordering.
- [Donald Trump] My father gave me a small loan
of a million dollars-
- [Narrator] Gaetz's father, Don Gaetz,
there he is, hooked his son up as well.
After making a fortune co-founding a hospice care company,
Don later used those profits
to launch his son into the spotlight.
The Gaetzs were so well off,
they owned a second home in Seaside Florida.
It's the same house Jim Carrey's character calls home
in The Truman Show.
Little Now This trivia.
Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones notes,
"Gaetz, who has devoted his career to getting on television,
spent much of his childhood in a house made famous
by a character trying to get off TV".
After graduating from William & Mary
with a JD in 2007,
Gaetz worked for a law firm,
where, according to Mother Jones,
"He filed a debt collection suit
against an elderly woman who couldn't
pay home care firm owned by Gaetz's dad".
Take that elderly woman.
Then in 2008,
one year into his gig at the firm,
Gaetz was pulled over for drunk driving.
After failing an eye test twice,
and absolutely refusing that breathalyzer
he was arrested,
but the charges were dropped thanks to a lawyer at the firm.
As of 2014, Gaetz has been cited for
17 traffic tickets since 1999.
And in addition to his DUI,
Gaetz rear-ended a constituent
while talking on his phone,
and racked up multiple speeding tickets over the years,
with no signs of slowing down.
See what I'm doing?
In 2010, he decided to run for the state house seat
in Florida's fourth district.
Once he was in the State House,
Gaetz lead an effort to allow Floridians
to carry guns openly in public,
he also sponsored a bill to speed up
the state's death row executions
and he sponsored another bill to ban abortions
under Obamacare.
In 2013, after George Zimmerman killed
Trayvon Martin,
Gaetz offered a full-throated defense
of Florida's 'stand your ground' law.
Which a recent study concluded,
conviction outcomes under that law
are racially biased.
Further fanning the flames of racial hatred,
Gaetz fired off a Tweet criticizing two
lawmakers' writing skills.
Out of the 14 Democrats,
Gaetz picked on the black legislators.
A comment he never rebuked.
In early 2016, Gaetz announced he was
running for the U.S. House seat,
representing Florida's first congressional district.
But winning was a different challenge.
According to Mother Jones,
In six year, Gaetz's net worth went from
one million dollars to just 388,000.
Yet, he was somehow pouring hundreds of thousands
of dollars into his campaign.
More than half of his net worth,
How was he doing it you might ask?
The young Gaetz began selling real estate
property around town.
But who bought it all, you might ask again?
Thank you for asking.
A company owned by his father,
where Matt himself, at the time of the sales,
was listed as an executive.
That's apparently a perfectly legal and a fun thing
to do in America,
which is a country that rules by the land.
So after Gaetz sold those properties
to a company owned by a bunch of Gaetzs,
he obviously won that seat,
where he has been stirring things up ever since.
With the help of some...
Super reliable folks,
- [Alex Jones] Well, Matt Gaetz,
really impressive, what you're doing.
Mattgaetz.com, thanks for joining us.
- [Narrator] During his first term,
Gaetz invited a Holocaust skeptic,
who threatened to take out a black lived matter
activist, to attend the State of the Union.
- [Matt Gaetz] I have met Chuck just briefly
before allowing him snag a ticket that was at our office
but, you know?
Some of the claims against Mr. Johnson
are not accurate,
he's not a Holocaust denier,
he's not a white supremacist-
- [Narrator] At a House Judiciary Committee hearing
on gun violence,
almost a year after the Parkland shooting,
Gaetz, along with his eight plus NRA rating,
tried to eject two fathers who lost children
to that shooting.
Gaetz explained,
"The greatest driver of violence wasn't the weapon,
but our immigration system and a lack of a wall".
When a grieving Parkland dad,
whose son's life was taken by a U.S. born citizen,
said, "That's not true".
Gaetz responded,
- [Matt Gaetz] Is there a process in the committee
where if by the very same people,
are repeatedly interrupting the time of the members,
that those people will be asked to depart the committee?
- [Narrator] So, who was cheering Gaetz on
through all of this?
- [Donald Trump] You talk about defending,
he's fantastic, Matt Gaetz.
(cheering)
- [Narrator] Well Trump has reason to back him.
In addition to their mutual beliefs,
Gaetz went a step further on the eve of
public testimony by Trump's
former personal lackey, I mean,
attorney, Michael Cohen.
Gaetz invoked his non-right to intimidate a witness,
tweeting,
"Hey @MichaelCohen212- Do your wife &
father-in-law know about your girlfriends?
Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat.
I wonder if she'll remain faithful when you're in prison.
She's about to learn a lot..."
- [Interviewer] Does your tweet amount to witness tampering?
- [Matt Gaetz] Absolutely not,
it's witness testing.
- [Narrator] The Florida bar opened as investigation
and Gaetz deleted the tweet.
In April 2019,
on a beautiful spring day,
Gaetz hired an ex White House Aid,
who was fired by the Trump Administration,
for his strong ties to white supremacist groups.
- [Donald Trump] He got fired.
- [Narrator] Picking up scraps deemed
even to controversial for a president,
who said they were good people on both sides
of the 2017 white nationalist rally in
Charlottesville,
truly sums up Gaetz's moral compass.
In Trump's Washington,
anything goes,
and Gaetz,
along with his numerous speeding tickets,
appears to be hauling straight to the top.
As long as he keeps sticking his neck out
for the President, the sky is the limit.
- [Donald Trump] Matt Gaetz,
where's Matt?
Stand up Matt.
Boy,
a great defender,
he gets on television and he's like,
it doesn't stop.