On Friday, ABC, CBS, and NBC used their flagship morning news shows to pivot away from former Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) withdrawing from the nomination fight to lead President Trump’s Justice Department towards deriding the new pick Pam Bondi as merely a “Trump loyalist,” foreign lobbyist, and former Florida Attorney General whose “tenure [was] not without controversy.”
Unsurprisingly, the Trump-hating ABC had Good Morning America put chief Washington correspondent and three-time anti-Trump author Jonathan Karl on the case, who said the important fact about Bondi is he’s a reflection of Trump “showing once again that among the top qualifications he is seeking for his cabinet is personal loyalty.”
Boasting she’s “a Trump loyalist, sometimes seen on stage at Trump rallies,” Karl suggested her two terms as Florida’s top law enforcement official (which was an elected position and at times when Florida was far less red than it is now) was defined by “controversy” with scandals such as “her decision to pass on a case against Trump University, shortly after receiving a donation from the Trump Foundation, but both Trump and Bondi deny any wrongdoing.”
Karl continued, dismissing her as a shady lobbyist and partisan hack for Trump’s first impeachment:
After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Bondi backed Trump’s false claims of election fraud. More recently, she has worked as a lobbyist and registered foreign agent. Among her past clients the government of Qatar. Perhaps most importantly to Trump, she’s been a loyal member of his inner circle for years now, joining him on the campaign trail back in 2016...and serving on Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial.
He later fretted that Bondi’s selection means Trump’s picks to lead the top three spots at the Justice Department (Bondi, Todd Blanche, and Emil Bove) and Solicitor General (John Sauer) have “all...worked in some way as his personal lawyer” and now will work for the American people.
Co-host Michael Strahan — who was picked given his stardom as an NFL player — kvetched in response that “it seems like he has a lot of personal relationships with everyone he is having join him.”
On CBS Mornings, co-host Gayle King also tagged her as “one of his most loyal defenders, including his first impeachment trial” and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe led the characteristic of “longtime defender” before even getting to her past as the Sunshine State’s attorney general.
“The former two-term Florida attorney general defended Trump during his first impeachment trial and is now being asked to carry out his legal agenda,” he said.
O’Keefe resurfaced on CBS Mornings Plus and doubled down and, when he did bring up her time in Tallahassee, he argued the Trump “loyalist” used her post to go after ObamaCare and lobbying post-AG’s office. He did at least admit she’s “far less controversial” than Gaetz (click “expand”):
O’KEEFE: Bondi, 59-year-old former two-term Attorney General of Florida and a longtime Trump loyalist. This is somebody that goes back all the way to when he first began running for president in 2015, 2016, somebody who was by his side throughout it all. And critically, at a big point in his presidency, was one of the defense attorneys on his first impeachment trial. So yet again, he’s going to a loyalist, someone who has stood by him in good times and bad to take on the top prosecutor job in the country. Someone who, when she was Florida Attorney General, sued to block or curtail the scope of the Affordable Care Act, has done other conservative legal work like that, both when she was attorney general and in the years since. One of the lines of scrutiny will be the lobbying work that she’s done in more recent years with a firm that’s closely aligned with a lot of people in Trump’s orbit, and among other things, representing the country of Qatar. But in some ways, that’s sort of standard review of a potential cabinet pick, and far less controversial than the accusations that were facing Gaetz.
KING: Ed, you know, this pick came so quickly, so, you know, that got people talking. A, was she just on deck? Was this a game plan all along? And why does he, Donald Trump, see this post as so essential? What do you make of all the theories about what went into this decision so quickly?
O’KEEFE: Yeah. Well, we know for one thing that the President-elect had been working the phones yesterday morning in the hours before Gaetz made his announcement, trying to sort out with Republican senators directly and other associates whether he had what was needed to get confirmed. And he was told, and we’ve learned since, that at least eight, I heard in one case, up to 15 Republican senators were potential no-votes for Gaetz, given the controversy around him, given the fact that he’d never served as a prosecutor, a government prosecutor, in any kind of role the way Pam Bondi has[.]
Admittedly, NBC chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander admitted on Today that, while Bondi is “one of [his] most loyal supporters,” she “is likely to have a much smoother path to confirmation as attorney general than Matt Gaetz[.]”
“Trump particularly praising her work combating the opioid crisis. A long time Trump ally, Bondi helped amplify Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election,” he added.
To see the relevant transcripts from November 22, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS Mornings), here (for CBS Mornings Plus), and here (for NBC).
