How Trump Picked Gaetz for Attorney General on a 2-Hour Plane Ride

How Trump Picked Gaetz

President-elect Donald J. Trump appeared to have gained some clarity on what he wanted in an attorney general while he was in Washington, the city he left in 2020 after weeks of his election lies.

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By Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

Reporting from Washington

President-elect Donald J. Trump still hadn’t settled on his pick for attorney general when he boarded his plane in Washington on Wednesday afternoon, bound for West Palm Beach, after spending a triumphal day in the capital meeting with President Biden at the White House and with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

By the time he landed in Florida two hours later, he had made an abrupt choice that stunned Washington: Representative Matt Gaetz, the firebrand congressman whose loyalty has never been in question.

The people on the plane with Mr. Trump that day included Mr. Gaetz; Mr. Trump’s top legal adviser, Boris Epshteyn; his incoming White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles; and Elon Musk, who has emerged as a powerful Trump confidant.

The decision came together over the course of the roughly two-hour flight, according to a person briefed on what happened. People moved around the plane as the discussion took place, the person said.

Mr. Gaetz’s name first came up on the flight up to Washington. It came up again on the flight home, after Mr. Trump found all of his various options — including a state attorney general from Missouri and two top corporate lawyers — to be lacking, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Mr. Gaetz has been one of Mr. Trump’s most aggressive defenders in public, and worked with Ms. Wiles to help prepare him for the debate with President Biden that knocked Mr. Biden out of the race four weeks later.

People with knowledge of the decision said Mr. Trump appeared to have gained some clarity on what he wanted while he was in Washington, the city he left in 2020 after weeks of his election lies, and where a special counsel was appointed by the Justice Department and ultimately indicted him three times.

The statement on Mr. Gaetz was issued from Mr. Trump’s plane — sent not from the Trump transition team by email, as has been the case for all other appointments, but on his own social media platform, Truth Social.

Trump Builds His Administration

As his team ramps up the transition process, President-elect Donald Trump says his administration will radically reshape the federal government.

• Immigration: Trump’s plans to expel noncitizens on a mass scale are likely to raise prices on goods and services and lower employment rates for U.S. workers, many economists say.
• Middle East: Trump’s emerging team in the Middle East appears poised to push U.S. foreign policy into even tighter accord with Israel’s far-right government.
• Skirting the Senate: Trump’s demand that Senate Republicans surrender their role in vetting his nominees poses an early test of whether his second term will be more radical than his first.
• Department of Education: The president-elect said he would use the department to further his priorities. He also said he would close it. Both options would face difficulties.
• Slashing Government: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped to lead what Trump called the Department of Government Efficiency, which he said would seek “drastic change.”