Trump’s Team Threatening GOP Senators With Elon Musk-Funded Primaries If They Vote Against Cabinet Picks, Reports ABC
ABC News’s Senior White House Correspondent Selina Wang reported on Thursday that President-elect Donald Trump’s team has been threatening Republican Senators with Elon Musk-funded primaries if they vote against his cabinet nominees.
“Well, Trump has been working the phones. He’s been upping the pressure on Senate Republicans, even calling some of them directly. This is as JD Vance is also making the pitch. It was up on Capitol Hill with Matt Gaetz yesterday meeting with some of those Senate Republicans,” Wang began, adding:
And we are told by a Trump official that those meetings were productive. But we’re also told that behind the scenes, the Trump team has been playing hardball and they’ve been giving an ominous warning to any Senate Republicans who might oppose his nominees.
One Trump adviser telling our Jon Karl that the message is, quote, ‘If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary. That is all. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it.’ The Trump adviser added, ‘The president gets to decide his cabinet. No one else.’
This comes as yesterday those Republicans on the House Ethics Committee voted against releasing that report into the investigation on Matt Gaetz around allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing. Some Senate Republicans are saying, though, that the contents of the report, even if it’s not formally released, will get out during the Senate confirmation hearings.
Shortly after Wang’s report aired, Gaetz dropped out of the confirmation process as more damaging information from the Ethics Committee appeared ready to come out. Wang went on to discuss the scandal surrounding Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth.
“Yeah, this police report that’s now been made public includes some graphic details about the sexual assault allegation from 2017. In this report, the woman who is accusing Hegseth says that the night of the incident, he blocked the hotel door, took her phone, and refused to let her leave,” Wang explained, adding:
He says that the encounter was consensual. This report says that investigators were alerted about this incident by a nurse who said that the woman had requested a sexual assault exam. Now, Diane, ultimately no charges were filed. But we later learned from Hegseth’s attorney that Seth later paid the woman so that she wouldn’t go public with her allegation so that it would not damage his career. But Donald Trump is standing by Hegseth as his pick for secretary of defense.
In fact, JD Vance is up on Capitol Hill again today, this time with Pete Hegseth, shepherding him through meetings with the Senate Republicans, hoping to smooth this confirmation process for Hegseth.
Watch the clip above via ABC News.
