Celebs And Politicians Who Hate Matt Gaetz

Donald Trump's controversial Cabinet and White House picks sent shockwaves around the U.S. — and beyond. Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Pete Hegseth are among the contentious names. Still, none proved as polarizing as Trump's proposed Attorney General, Matt Gaetz. In Washington's cut-throat, backstabbing, dog-eat-dog world, it's impossible not to rack up a few foes. However, the Floridian stands out from the crowd with an inordinately long list of celeb and political haters.

Gaetz's combatant count is on par with the number of celebs who can't stand Trump — no mean feat, all things considered. And it's nonpartisan, with Republicans and Democrats alike fully fledged Gaetz haters. The hostility was so fierce that Gaetz withdrew from consideration after a week of intense scrutiny and ever-increasing certainty that he would never win Senate approval, paving the way for Trump's next AG pick, Pam Bondi. However, don't expect him to withdraw to the shadows anytime soon. "I'm still going to be in the fight, but it's going to be from a new perch," he vowed in a November 2024 interview with Charlie Kirk.

Meanwhile, anyone jonesing for a Gaetz fix can dial up his services anytime, as he has followed in the footsteps of his fellow fallen attorney and Trump fanatic, Rudy Giuliani, and joined Cameo. Given Gaetz's dire popularity ratings, it's questionable how much he'll make. Still, he's likely in it for the love, not the money. We're checking out some of the top celeb and political Gaetz haters.

Jon Cryer and Matt Gaetz got into it in September 2020, trading blows in a war of words on X, formerly Twitter. The fight was sparked by ideological differences, but it quickly moved into the realm of something much more significant and consequential: Charlie Sheen and his role in "Two and a Half Men."

"Rep. @mattgaetz invited a white supremacist to the State of the Union, attempted to intimidate a federal witness, and endorsed a sociopathic bigot who applauded the deaths of migrants for congress. I just donated to his opponent @PhilEhr," Cryer wrote. "Charlie Sheen totally carried 'two and a half men,'" Gaetz shot back. "Is that why, after he left, it lasted for 4 more years and I won an Emmy for Best Actor in a Comedy?" Cryer replied. It didn't end there. Gaetz dissed the Emmys as a Hollywood frivolity and boasted that he won what really matters in the world: elections. Cryer managed to get the last word. He clarified that he wasn't diminishing Sheen in any way before pointing out: "You can't say he 'carried' a show that lasted four years without him."

Meanwhile, the politician is no stranger to the world of weird celebrity interactions. Gaetz once had a proposal for Britney Spears amid her conservatorship drama. However, sadly, it went as badly as his bid to be Attorney General.

Given Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's political ideology, it's no surprise that she's not a Matt Gaetz fan. Still, he tipped her over the edge in June 2022 when he invoked the suicide of Maryland Democratic lawmaker Jamie Raskin's son during an interview on Marjorie Taylor Greene's podcast. Gaetz claimed the tragedy had affected Raskin's ability to act fairly as a January 6 committee member. "The country shouldn't have to go through all that with him," he said. "What I worry about with Raskin, in all seriousness — when people encounter trauma, they often associate a lot of the other things around that trauma with it, even if they don't naturally or even rationally associate."

Tommy Raskin took his own life on New Year's Eve 2020. His father said the loss helped him focus on the task ahead and deal with potential death threats relating to his role on the committee. "I personally felt no fear because the very worst thing that ever could have happened to me had already happened to me," Jamie wrote in his memoir "Unthinkable" (via NPR). "And so my feeling to the people who want to take down our democracy is that they're not going to scare me out of doing my job."

Ocasio-Cortez leaped to her Democratic colleague's defense in an X post. As for his attacker? "Gaetz is a bad haircut in a cheap suit, a feat of mediocrity given that he's here on papa's money. Bye," Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

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When Stephen Colbert goes on the attack, he holds no prisoners. Such was the case when he mauled Matt Gaetz in an April 2021 monologue about the sex scandal that persistently hangs over his head.

"This week, I read every possible article about the career implosion of Florida congressman and host of 'Let's Make a Douche,' Matt Gaetz," Colbert started. He summarized the case against Gaetz, explaining the Justice Department was investigating him over claims he'd violated federal sex trafficking laws by allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl. Gaetz was also accused of paying for sex with women he met on an app called "Seeking Arrangements." He denied all of the allegations, and the case was closed in February 2023 without any criminal charges.

However, Colbert questioned Gaetz's innocence, referencing The New York Times' claim that reporters had seen receipts for payments Gaetz allegedly made. "Gaetz didn't keep his pervy behavior a secret, allegedly," Colbert said before reading a CNN headline: "He showed photos of nude women he said he'd slept with... while on the House floor." The comedian then talked about historical sexual misconduct allegations leveled against the politician. He also played a clip of Tucker Carlson admitting after Gaetz appeared on his show, "That was one of the weirdest interviews I've ever conducted." That's really quite something, all things considered.

George Conway is a Republican, an attorney, a one-time Donald Trump ally, a Solicitor General contender, and the ex-husband of Trump's former counselor and campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway. It's safe to say he knows a thing or two about Washington, Trump's inner sanctum, and the legal world. So, it's pretty telling that he's a Gaetz hater. George made his feelings clear regarding Matt Gaetz in a November 2024 interview with CNN following the news that Trump picked him as his prospective AG.

"Matt Gaetz, in a lot of ways, is the perfect Attorney General for Donald Trump," he said. "We have a convicted criminal who's a president, who has been adjudicated to engage in sexual abuse, so why not select a guy who has been loyal to him and who wants to seek revenge in the same way Donald Trump does and who is, was, accused of sex trafficking? He's the perfect choice."

Meanwhile, George told The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell that it was "off the charts" alarming that Gaetz was an AG contender. He compared it to Chernobyl and how people ignored all the warning signs before the disaster hit. George recalled being in a meeting the day before, with attendees assuming the news of the Gaetz nomination was satire. He compared it to a fake news tweet naming Lauren Boebert as Trump's Secretary of Education pick and said they were equally absurd.

Alyssa Farah Griffin proves that Gaetz haters straddle both sides of the political divide. Although she didn't know him personally, "The View" co-host occasionally interacted with Gaetz when she was the White House director of strategic communications and Assistant to the President during Donald Trump's first term in office. And it's safe to say that she isn't a fan.

In November 2024, she shared details of a conversation she had with Gaetz over his persistence in peddling a conspiracy theory about "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough. "I was standing in the outer Oval, so the room outside of the Oval Office, with Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz was holding a folder; he was about to go meet with then-President Trump," Griffin said. "He shows me these printed-out conspiracy theories that Joe Scarborough ... had murdered his staffer," she recalled. "I said, 'Please do not show these to the President of the United States.'"

Of course, he did, and Trump proceeded to broadcast the baseless claims that had been debunked years earlier to his millions of followers in a flurry of malicious attack posts on X. Griffin said that the deceased staffer's family begged the White House to stop perpetrating the lies, but to no avail. "It was a tragedy, no foul play," she said. "That speaks to [Gaetz's] character, integrity, and judgment," Griffin concluded.