CNN’s Jake Tapper Grills Speaker Johnson About Gaetz, Hegseth and RFK’s Personal Skeletons: Do Morals ‘Matter Anymore?’

CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) Sunday about whether morals “matter anymore” to the Republican Party, in light of President-Elect Donald Trump’s controversial cabinet picks.

Trump’s nominee for attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), had been under investigation for allegedly having inappropriate relationships with under-age girls, while defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth reportedly paid off a woman who accused him of sexual assault. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., — Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary — reportedly had a “personal relationship” outside of his marriage with New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi, and possibly at least three other women, according to reporting by Mediaite’s Diana Falzone.

“You and I have known each other a long time,” Tapper said to Johnson. “You’re a man of faith, you’re a man of God, you’re a man of family. With some of these nominees, Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr., I wonder — does it matter anymore for Republicans to think of leaders as people who are moral in their personal lives? Is that still important to the Republican Party?”

Johnson responded:

Sure, it’s an important issue for anyone in leadership. This is what I’ll say about the nominees that the president has put forward, is that they are persons who will shake up the status quo. And I think what the American people have believed and what they’ve delivered with the mandate in this election is a demand that we shake up the status quo. It’s not working for the American people. So, use the term in the opening about how these are disruptors. They are!  I think that’s by design.

Any president has the right to name their own cabinet to nominate persons that they think the people that will fulfill their agenda. And the people that are on this list will do that. They will go into the agencies that they’re being asked to lead and they will reform them. These agencies need reform. And I think the vast majority of the American people understand that. You can’t have status quo appointments in a moment like this.

Earlier in the interview, Johnson defended his decision not to release the House ethics report on Gaetz, saying it wouldn’t be “appropriate” since Gaetz was no longer a sitting congressman.

Watch the clip above via CNN.