Matt Gaetz

And it's even more pathetic when really smart, accomplished people do it.

I'm a country lawyer from North Florida.

I'd been in the legislature, got elected to Congress.

I'd never done anything in my life that rendered me a war hero or some tycoon of industry.

But those people do get elected at times.

And then you just go watch them debase themselves.

Oh, I know.

And they become actors and the scripts are written by the lobby corps and produced and directed by the leadership.

You never took APAC money?

I did not.

I refused those funds.

How did that go for you?

I just, you know.

I didn't become attorney general.

But that wasn't precisely about APAC for me.

That was just about all of it.

I even had groups like DNRA or Right to Life that I was largely aligned with say, well, will you take our PAC money?

And I just – the whole thing seemed untoward.

Like how do you take money from people who have a specific interest at times hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars and then go stand at the fish house in Pensacola, Florida and tell people you're not influenced by it?

I couldn't perform the act anymore.