'Smokescreen': Strategist warns Matt Gaetz isn't the nominee America should fear

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), embroiled in scandals surrounding an ethics report into allegations of child sex trafficking and other offenses, is grabbing headlines as Republicans scramble to decide whether they support making the findings public before hearings into his nomination for attorney general. But presidential strategist Ashley Etienne thinks Gaetz isn't even the most dangerous nominee people should have their eyes on.

That distinction, she told CNN's Jake Tapper, is former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, whom Trump wants to head up the office of the Director of National Intelligence despite her track record of disbelieving U.S. intelligence and promoting propaganda of foreign dictators.

"Why are we even debating this?" said Etienne. "If you're not guilty, release it. But here's the — here's the other way I see it for the speaker to weigh in on this — and we were just talking about this, I've worked for a speaker before. It's very rare for a speaker to get involved in the Ethics Committee at all in their deliberations, to say anything. So for the speaker to weigh in and try to bury a report like this, to me, suggests the depth of the the moral and ethical bankruptcy of the Republican Party at this point. And that should concern all of us."

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"But here's what I think — I think Gaetz is a smokescreen," she continued. "I think he's a distraction from the real dangerous pick. Like Tulsi Gabbard. You know, Tulsi Gabbard is someone who people widely accepted on both sides of the aisle is compromised. She pals around with terrorists and dictators. She's a Putin sympathizer and she's going to be in charge of America's secrets. That should concern us all."

For that reason, she added, she suspects Gaetz is a "smokescreen" and he'll probably be the nominee who fails — because "you always lose one nominee."

"But I would advise the Democratic Party: keep your eye on Tulsi Gabbard," she said. "I would also advise you, Jake and others, to focus on her. And let's elevate what we know about her and how she's not beyond reproach when it comes to these confirmation hearings."

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