Former Republican Congressman and current right-wing TV host Matt Gaetz joined podcaster Tucker Carlson on an episode of his show Tuesday to deliver a bold electoral prognosis.
Discussing the upcoming midterm elections next year, Gaetz told Carlson that believes Republicans will lose their majority in the House of Representatives and that current Democratic minority leader ‘Hakeem Jeffries becomes the speaker.’
Gaetz added that the ‘the candy becomes the poison’ for Democrats because they will ultimately lose in the next presidential election due to overreach in the final two years of President Trump’s second term.
‘Democrats win the midterms, they execute a series of ransom-like shutdowns on Trump, the country gets weary of that and probably elects JD Vance president in 2028,’ Gaetz forecast.
Gaetz also presented another hypothesis for the 2028 presidential race, stating that he sees fellow right-wing media star Steve Bannon running for President of the United States on a ‘Elizabeth Warren wealth tax economic agenda.’
The former firebrand Florida Representative resigned from Congress last year after he was briefly nominated to serve as Trump’s attorney general following the 2024 presidential election.
Gaetz’s nomination was withdrawn by the White House after he received pushback from a number of senators, including members of his own party, who were irked by allegations he paid underage women for sex. Gaetz denied the claims and was never charged with a crime.
Discussing the claims made against him in a 2024 House Ethics report, Gaetz told Carlson that ‘Israel was involved’ in an ‘op to silence’ him.
A voter carries his ballot to a booth at a polling station, Nov. 4, 2025, in Lawrence, Mass.
Matt Gaetz speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 12, 2024
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., holds a news conference after the final House votes of the year as he criticized the Republican majority and their loyalty to President Donald Trump, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025
Tucker Carlson speaks during AmericaFest, the first Turning Point USA summit since the death of Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. December 18, 2025
‘It was troubling and concerning to me that someone who was getting paid by the Israeli government was involved in a criminal shakedown of a US congressman,’ Gaetz told Carlson.
‘There was never really an effort to figure out what the government of Israel’s involvement was in this matter. But you know that the government of Israel was involved because this was an Israeli government official who was involved in this,’ Gaetz continued.
Notably, Gaetz told Carlson that he still considered himself pro-Israel, but believed “what the Netanyahu government is doing to Israel is bad for Israel..’
After Gaetz departed Congress, his seat was filled by former Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis.
