5 Most Bonkers Matt Gaetz Details — Including Showing Sex Tapes on His Phone — Revealed in Atlantic Deep Dive

A new profile of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in The Atlantic paints a clear picture of an attention-craving congressman. It’s not a likeable one, but judging by this profile, Gaetz doesn’t seem to care.

The deep dive by Elaine Godfrey was published on Thursday and there were certainly a few standout stories contained within. They might not be terribly surprising to anyone who has followed Gaetz’s rise as a MAGA disruptor on Capitol Hill, but they reinforce his image among many critics who view him as a stereotypical ’90s comedy villain born with a silver spoon in his gullet.

Here are a few of the more notable takeaways:

He’s a Florida GOP Nepo Baby to the Core

While it’s not a new revelation that Gaetz comes from Florida Republican royalty, Godfrey’s account of “Daddy Gaetz and Baby Gaetz” illustrates how the former debate club nerd was all too happy to ride his father’s coattails in local Florida politics:

At the time [Gaetz was serving in the Florida State House], Don Gaetz was president of the Florida Senate, and the father-and-son pair was referred to, mostly behind their backs but sometimes to their faces, as Daddy Gaetz and Baby Gaetz. The latter had a tendency to barge in on his father’s meetings, hop on the couch, and prop his feet up, Ryan Wiggins, a former political consultant who used to work with Matt Gaetz, told me. Because of their relationship, Matt “had a level of power that was very, very resented in Tallahassee,” she said.

But even before he entered politics, his family wealth was not just a source of pride for Gaetz, it was his whole personality:

Matt had a credit card in high school, which was relatively rare in the late 1990s, and he bragged about his “real-estate portfolio,” Erin Scot, a former friend of Gaetz’s, told me. “He was obviously much more well off than basically anyone else, or at least wanted us to think he was.” Once, Gaetz got into an argument with a student who had been accepted to the prestigious Dartmouth debate camp, another classmate said. The fight snowballed until Gaetz threatened to have his father, who was on the school board, call Dartmouth and rescind the student’s application.

Gaetz Works Well With Democrats — When It’s Convenient For Him

Every once in a while, the self-proclaimed MAGA “firebrand” reaches across the aisle to work with Democrats. Godfrey even reported that while he was a State Representative, Gaetz “wasn’t interested in his father’s traditional, mild-mannered Republicanism” and sought out ways to “modernize” the party by courting younger voters and acknowledging climate change:

Gaetz has positioned himself as a sort of libertarian populist. He’s proposed abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency, but he’s not a climate-change denier, and has supported legislation that would encourage companies to reduce carbon emissions voluntarily. He has consistently opposed American intervention in foreign wars, and he advocates fewer restrictions on marijuana possession and distribution. He still allies himself with Democrats when it’s convenient: He defended a former colleague, Democratic Representative Katie Hill, when she was embroiled in a revenge-porn scandal and forged an unlikely alliance with Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over their desire for a ban on congressional stock trading.

Godfrey wrote that while in the State House, Gaetz “was one of two lawmakers to vote against a state bill criminalizing revenge porn.”

He also, at least while he was in the State House, was friends with current Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), with whom he helped pass a bill to strengthen animal-cruelty laws. No word on whether or not that friendship is still happening.

Matt Gaetz Might Have Few Friends Left From His Childhood

Godfrey seemingly found it difficult to find people from Gaetz’s younger days to speak on the record about him:

I had difficulty finding people from Gaetz’s college years who were willing to talk with me; I reached out to old friends and didn’t hear back. Gaetz’s own communications team sent over a list of people I could reach out to; only one replied.

And when speaking to former classmates who were in the debate club with Gaetz:

“We tolerated him,” more than one former debate-club member said when I asked about Gaetz. (Most of them spoke with me on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of retribution from Gaetz or his father.)

Gaetz’s former debate club coach, Marilyn McGill, spoke fondly of her former student when it came to that era of his life. But now?

McGill gushed about her student in our interview. But when I asked what she thought of him now, the former teacher didn’t have much to offer on the record. “He certainly commands the stage still,” she said. “How about that?”

He’s Been Bragging About — and Sharing Images of — His Conquests For Years

Erin Scot recounted to Godfrey that the last time she saw her former friend Gaetz was at the 2009 wedding of a mutual friend. While there, the future congressman showed off nude pictures of a “recent hookup.” And while a state rep in the 2010s, Gaetz was allegedly the creator of a “Points Game” amongst other local GOP lawmakers that awarded certain numbers of points for hooking up with women who held certain political positions:

As the journalist Marc Caputo has reported, the scoring system went like this: one point for hooking up with a lobbyist, three points for a fellow legislator, six for a married fellow legislator, and so on. Gaetz and his friends all played the game, at least three people confirmed to me, although none could tell me exactly where Gaetz stood on the scoreboard. (Gaetz has denied creating, having knowledge of, or participating in the game.)

Which led to the most recent allegations that Gaetz was known to show off photos of his sexual conquests while serving in Congress, including a video of “a young woman hula-hooping naked” that was reportedly seen by a former Gaetz aide. More similar stories came to light after Gaetz was accused of sex-trafficking and having sex with a minor:

Other sordid claims have spilled out since. “He used to walk around the cloakroom showing people porno of him and his latest girlfriend,” one former Republican lawmaker told me. “He’d show me a video, and I’d say, ‘That’s great, Matt.’ Like, what kind of a reaction do you want?” (The video, according to the former lawmaker, showed the hula-hooping woman.)

He Worried the Sex-Trafficking Story Could Scare Off His Fiancée 

Gaetz’s alleged porn brags on the Hill came just before he met his current wife, Ginger Luckey. They met and got engaged in 2020 — right before the Department of Justice announced its investigation into Gaetz allegedly paid for sex with women who were recruited to sleep with him by his friend Joel Greenberg, who ultimately pleaded guilty to sex trafficking a child in May 2021. Not ideal right after getting engaged:

On social media, people called Gaetz a pedophile and a rapist; commenters on Luckey’s Instagram photos demanded to know how she could possibly date him. In many political circles, Gaetz became untouchable. He was “radioactive in Tallahassee,” one prominent Florida Republican official told me, and for a while, he stopped being invited on Fox News. Around this time, [Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis] cut Gaetz out of his inner circle. His wife, Casey, had “told Ron that he was persona non grata,” [Peter Schorsch] told me. “She hated all the sex stories that came out.” (Others have suggested that Gaetz fell out with DeSantis after a power struggle with the governor’s former chief of staff.)

The ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation could have further consequences for Gaetz. The committee may ultimately recommend some kind of punishment for him — whether a formal reprimand, a censure, or even expulsion from Congress — to be voted on by the whole House.

Gaetz’s response to the investigation has been ferocious denial. He has blamed the allegations on a “deep state” plot or part of an “organized criminal extortion” against him. His team blasted out emails accusing the left of “coming” for him. But privately, in the spring of 2021, Gaetz was despondent. He worried that Luckey would call off their engagement. “She’s for sure going to leave me,” [Charles Johnson] said Gaetz told him in the days after the stories broke.

But Luckey stood by her man and the pair eloped in August 2021. The Justice Department announced in February 2023 that the charges against Gaetz would be dropped. But the idea of a “despondent” Matt Gaetz sure is a contrast to the persona he’s cultivated.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy placed the blame for his ouster squarely on Gaetz, saying on Wednesday: “I’ll give you the truth why I’m not speaker: because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old girl.”

An investigation by the House Ethics Committee into the allegations that Gaetz paid for sex and participated in sex trafficking is currently underway. A spokesperson for Gaetz told ABC News, in response to a Feburary report about his alleged text messages to this woman: “Rep. Gaetz has no knowledge of these activities by Mr. Greenberg and was not involved in them. Rep. Gaetz has never paid for sex. Rep. Gaetz does not know anything about the woman you’re referencing, though he takes thousands of selfies each year.”

Read the full profile at The Atlantic.