Should we be excited or skeptical about Trump’s new AG pick, Pam Bondi?
Conservatives rejoiced when Trump tapped firebrand Matt Gaetz as his pick for attorney general. They couldn’t wait to see him go after the partisan, weaponized DOJ.
But then Gaetz’s controversial past got in the way, and when Senate confirmation was looking troublesome, he withdrew from his nomination so as not to be a “distraction” from the work the Trump administration was trying to accomplish.
While Gaetz’s stepping down was certainly disheartening, there were still other excellent picks — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton or perhaps Missouri’s Andrew Bailey, for example.
However, Trump took many by surprise when he then pointed to Pam Bondi, former Florida attorney general, as his next choice.
Who is Pam Bondi? And how should conservatives take the news of her nomination?
Josh Hammer, senior editor at large for Newsweek and host of “The Josh Hammer Show,” joins Jill Savage and Blaze News editor in chief Matthew Peterson on “Blaze News Tonight” to answer these questions.
One thing that paints Pam Bondi in a positive light for conservatives is the reality that MSNBC is terrified of her, precisely because “she is competent” and “knows what she is doing.”
While that’s certainly good news, not all conservatives are thrilled with this pick.
“This came out of left field for me,” Peterson tells Hammer.
“I’m not thrilled with the pick,” Hammer admits. “Pam Bondi would not have been on my short list.”
That’s not to say Bondi isn’t competent, however. “She was a two-term attorney general of the nation’s third largest state” and has “been a prosecutor for 20 years.” Further, Bondi was “a leader in the Barack Obama era,” which means “she was one of the leaders of the states fighting Obamacare.”
That’s “a very good and laudable thing,” says Hammer.
However, “I have some very specific concerns about Pam Bondi,” he adds. “Pam Bondi supported some pro-gun control measures in Florida, especially in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, [and] some measures, which Rick Scott signed into law pertaining to red flag laws.”
“She was also bringing home I think $115,000 a month at one point as a registered foreign agent of the Qatari government, so at a bare minimum, I would like to make sure that that is no longer the case and that she is no longer an asset of what is essentially a state sponsor of terrorism,” adds Hammer, noting that he “assumes that she’s not.”
When it comes to “enforc[ing] the rule of law” and “secur[ing] the border,” however, he is confident Bondi “will be effective.”
Unfortunately, “She is not someone who’s going to come in there and basically clean out the Augean stables and burn the whole thing down like a Matt Gaetz would have,” he says, but “as someone who personally hopes that the Trump-Vance administration succeeds in all that they want to do, I wish her all the best.”
To hear more about Pam Bondi, watch the episode above.
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