Donald Trump's universe is fixated on the concept of male "virility," Politico's Marc Caputo told CNN anchor Erin Burnett on Friday evening — and that's a major source of the scandals unfolding in his cabinet picks.
Specifically, Trump has nominated a string of people, from former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, to conspiracy theorist and former environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with various sexual misconduct allegations in their past. And now yet another of Trump's picks, Linda McMahon, is facing a lawsuit alleging she overlooked sexual abuse of children by a World Wrestling Entertainment employee starting in the 1980s.
"Understand that the suit was just filed," said Caputo. "It's going to take a long time to work through the courts. And Linda McMahon's confirmation vote will be long in the past by the time this thing gets adjudicated, right? So in addition to the fact that Trump probably doesn't give it much stock, just a guess, there's the fact that the timing is not really going to match up to affect her confirmation."
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"Now you know, the thing about this, though, is that this isn't the one maybe you would have expected it of, but McMahon is now the fourth Trump Cabinet nominee embroiled in some sort of sexual scandal," said Burnett. "That's obviously shocking ... you would usually expect zero. Is Trump signaling anything with these picks?"
"I think the Linda McMahon one is different from the various allegations that involve Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, and RFK Jr. So that is a bit different," said Caputo. "But, you know, the — I'm trying to put this the delicately. The political culture that surrounds MAGA is generally — puts a lot of stock in alpha males, and there is an emphasis on virility. And therefore, sex-related matters can sometimes come up."
"That would be the best way for me to explain why three of these nominees — well, it's now two because one just dropped out, Matt Gaetz — had these issues that swirled around them," he added. "Otherwise it's just a coincidence. And that's a little hard to believe."
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