Episode description

Representative Matt Gaetz is one of the most outspoken critics of the status quo in Washington, which he demonstrated most recently by playing a key role in removing fellow-Republican Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. How was Gaetz able to pull off such a feat given his deep unpopularity in Congress, and the fact that he’s under a House Ethics Committee investigation for the sex trafficking of a minor? The New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins, who recently profiled Gaetz in the magazine, joins Tyler Foggatt to explore the congressman’s motivations, including how fractured party politics have played a role in his rise to fame. “The party has to decide what it is,” Filkins says. “It’s not what it used to be, and it’s rapidly becoming something else. . . . In the interregnum, we’re seeing all these morbid symptoms as the party kind of convulses and tries to figure out its new identity.”