Matt Gaetz really did stand up to Trump. It was the right thing to do
The firebrand from the Florida Panhandle was one of only three Republicans who bucked Trump and the party line.
Pigs didn’t fly last week — at least not that anyone knows — but Matt Gaetz really did stand up to President Trump. He voted for the House resolution against going to war with Iran unless Congress approves. And he asked other Republicans to support it as well.
The firebrand from the Florida Panhandle was one of only three Republicans who bucked Trump and the party line. So did Francis Rooney of Naples, who is retiring. Stephanie Murphy of Winter Park, a co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition, was one of eight Democrats who opposed the resolution.
Gaetz’s vote was the startling one. He touts his reputation as “the Trumpiest Congressman in Trump’s Washington.” His opposition to Trump’s impeachment has been over the top.
However, his district claims more active-duty military personnel and veterans than any other. They deserve a government that won’t send them to war recklessly — especially not to endless wars like the one that began with Afghanistan and Iraq and persists 19 years later.
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours after using military force and to stand down after 90 days unless Congress gives authorization. The White House argues that the authorization of military force Congress passed three days after 9⁄11 covers the military action it took in Iraq to assassinate Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.
An article in BuzzFeed illuminates how that 60-word authorization has been used to justify actions never imagined, including the use of force in Yemen and Somalia, the detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, and secret renditions, Navy Seal raids and drone strikes. Now it is being used to justify the killing of an Iranian general. Is war with Iran next?
It is unquestionably time for the Senate, as the House did last week, to force President Trump to seek Congressional authorization before escalating military action against Iran. If we’re on a path toward war, let us hear the debate — and see the vote.
The administration says Suleimani posed an imminent threat, but when Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky criticized the lack of the evidence, they were pilloried for daring to question the president.
Gaetz, too, has come under intense criticism for joining the company of people who correctly take the Constitution to mean that only the Congress can declare war.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina spoke of “empowering the enemy.” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted that some people “just oppose everything Trump does.” On Fox Business, propagandist Lou Dobbs called Lee “Benedict Arnold” and Gaetz’s vote “stupid” and “mind-boggling.”
Given the nature of Gaetz’s constituency and the fact that the House resolution is non-binding, one might have hoped that Trump would overlook his opposing vote, as President Obama did when 39 House Democrats opposed the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
But Trump doesn’t tolerate dissenters. Someone at the White House told the Washington Post that calls or messages from Gaetz would not be returned even if he were “kneeling in the snow.”
Think about that: A representative the people elected should go to his knees to beg forgiveness for disagreeing with Trump.
But that’s what makes Gaetz’s vote exceptional. Nearly all Congressional Republicans are on their knees in fear of Trump’s perceived influence over Republican voters.
They saw how an angry Trump got Rep. Mark Sanford defeated in a South Carolina Republican primary two years ago. However, let them also remember that Trump’s candidates lost big races in Louisiana and Kentucky last year. And in the 2018 midterm, a little more than half of the candidates he endorsed — 49 of 86 — won. So his pull is not almighty.
This editorial board has had its differences with Gaetz, especially over his mudthrowing defense of Trump during the House’s impeachment hearings. He has been to partisanship what gasoline is to flame.
This time, however, he did the right thing for his country, as well as for his district.
A colleague who knows him well, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, told us this week that she wasn’t surprised by Gaetz’s vote.
“From having talked to Matt over the years, he is really someone who rightfully jealously guards Congress’ authority over war powers and I know he also doesn’t think we should be engaged in the Middle East,” she said. “With his track record, that didn’t surprise me.”
It’s not the first time Gaetz has surprised us, though, in going where few Republicans dare.
He has filed legislation that would remove marijuana from the same class of drugs as heroin and LSD, for example. “Far too many Republicans have reflexive opposition to cannabis reform of any kind,” he once told us.
He also believes climate change is real. “I can tell the earth is warming based on overwhelming scientific evidence and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’ve released like 300 years of carbon in the last several decades,” he told Vox.
But just like that, Gaetz cedes the high ground. It happened last March when he appeared to threaten former Trump attorney Michael Cohen before his testimony in the House impeachment hearings. “Hey Michael Cohen,” Gaetz’s tweet said, “Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat.”
It happened again Monday, when Gaetz criticized a Florida state representative who tweeted about having met the Rev. Al Sharpton. Rep. Chris Latvala, R-Clearwater, tweeted back that when Gaetz was in the Legislature, he “created a game where members of the FL House got ‘points’ for sleeping with aides, interns, lobbyists and married legislators.”
We don’t know whether Gaetz created such a despicable game. He says he doesn’t know what Latvala is talking about.
But Washington buzzing about an authorization for war, here we are, back in the mud.
Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Sergio Bustos, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.