December 4, 2019

Poor little Matt Gaetz. Maybe he needed a drink at lunch to take the edge off because he came back for the afternoon session of the House Judicary Committee hearing featuring four esteemed law professors and completely lost his mind when questioning the one female panelist, Professor Pamela Karlan. Typical GOP misogyny on full display, from the finger waving to the raising of the voice. You can just imagine him acting this way, or even worse, in private with women in his life.

Here is some of the back and forth:

GAETZ: I appreciate your testimony. Professor Karlan, you gave a thousand bucks to Elizabeth Warren, right?

KARLAN: I believe so.

GAETZ: You gave 1,200 bucks to Barack Obama?

KARLAN: I have no reason to question that.

GAETZ: And you gave 2,000 bucks to Hillary Clinton?

KARLAN: That's correct.

GAETZ: Why so much more for Hillary than the other two?

KARLAN: Because I have been giving a lot of money to charity recently because of all of the poor people in the United States.

[ laughter ]

GAETZ: Those aren't the only folks you've been giving to. Have you ever been on a podcast called "Versus Trump?"

KARLAN: I think I was on a live panel that the people who ran the podcast called Versus Trump --

GAETZ: Do you remember saying the following. "Liberals tend to cluster more, conservatives, especially very conservative people tend to spread out more, perhaps because they don't even want to be around themselves?" Did you say that?

KARLAN: Yes, I did.

GAETZ: Do you understand how that reflects contempt on people who are conservative?

KARLAN: No. What I was talking about there was the natural tendency, if you put the quote in context, the natural tendency of a compactness requirement to favor a party whose voters are more spread out. And I do not have contempt --

GAETZ (SCREAMING): Hold on.

KARLAN: For conservatives and I do not have contempt --

GAETZ (SCREAMING): I just have to say when you talk about how liberals want to be around each other in cluster and conservatives don't want to be around each other and so they have to spread out, you may not see this from like the ivory towers of your law school, but it makes the actual people in this country --

KARLAN: When the president calls --

GAETZ (SCREAMING AND WAVING FINGERS): You don't get to interrupt me on this time. Let me also suggest that when you invoke the President's son's name here. When you try to make a little joke out of referencing Trump, that does not lend credibility to your argument. It makes you look mean. It makes you look like you're attacking someone's family. The minor child of the President of the United States.

Gaetz, performing for an audience of one, modeling his Dear Leader's favorite pastime of attacking strong women in a public arena for the enjoyment of scared and weak Republican men.

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