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RIVERTON — Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz braved a "wintry mix" of weather Thursday night to endorse Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs in the race to fill Sen. Mitt Romney's seat this fall, taking shots at the outgoing senator and Utah Rep. John Curtis along the way.
Gaetz — a Republican closely aligned with former President Donald Trump — addressed a crowd of several hundred GOP delegates and supporters, many of whom came dressed in "Make America Great Again" hats and T-shirts adorned with the former president's mugshot.
The Florida congressman drew applause and cheers when attacking Romney, who has become the prototype of a "Republican in name only" to many Trump supporters. Gaetz also frequently slammed John Curtis, another Republican vying for Romney's seat.
"John Curtis is just Mitt Romney without the good hair," Gaetz said.
Staggs launched his Senate campaign last May, months before Romney announced he would not seek another term, and has regularly pitched himself to Trump supporters on national outlets such as Fox News and Newsmax. Polling of the 11-candidate Republican primary from January shows the race is still up for grabs, but Curtis leads the pack, likely prompting the attention and comparisons to Romney.
Staggs' efforts to court the MAGA base have paid off so far in terms of endorsements from Trump's orbit, as he has already garnered support from Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake and Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville.
Like the former president, Staggs has also cast himself as outside of the Republican establishment, and called Gaetz — who has frequently been a thorn in the side of House Republican leadership and sponsored the motion to vacate former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — one of the politicians who has most often "put their finger in the eye of the establishment."
That anti-establishment sentiment permeated the crowd as well; calls to defund the FBI, cut spending to the United Nations and Ukraine, and free the prisoners convicted of entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were met with rapturous applause.
Several people in the audience were in Washington on Jan. 6, according to Staggs, who said a "dear friend" spent 30 days imprisoned after "walking around for a few minutes" in the Capitol "after being ushered in." He appeared to downplay the violence that occurred in and around the Capitol that day.
"If people broke the law, absolutely should the law hold. But what happened on that day, what was portrayed in the media versus a lot of eyewitness accounts, folks that I have talked to ... is night and day. And that to me is very disturbing," Staggs said.
When someone in the crowd asked Gaetz what the "plan" is for Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who helped advise Trump's COVID-19 response, another attendee yelled, "a rope." Some Trump supporters have accused the longtime immunologist — who retired in 2022 — of lying about the disease.
If Trump is reelected in 2024, Gaetz said officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should be prosecuted "for those lies."
Another attendee asked about Trump's referrals of Chinese President Xi Jinping as his "friend." He asked Gaetz to "please tell President Trump to quit calling Xi his friend. Xi is committed to the destruction of America and he's no 'friend.'"
Gaetz laughed, saying he doesn't give the former president "rhetorical advice." The congressman then compared Trump to Michael Scott, the buffoonish manager portrayed by Steve Carell on the TV series, "The Office."
"I don't really understand, but it's probably operating at a higher level," Gaetz said of Trump.
As anti-establishment as Staggs' message was, he's now running in a party that has been remade in the image of Trump — with Trump allies leading the Republican National Committee, House Republican caucus and the vast majority of state Republican parties. But while Republican voters in Utah have swung for Trump in recent elections, the state remains more skeptical of the former president compared to similarly conservative states.
Staggs is going all in on courting GOP delegates in lieu of collecting signatures, meaning he will need at least 40% support from delegates at the state Republican convention on April 27.
