Does the Gaetz-to-Bondi Transition Count as a Win? Maybe. For Now.
It’s just a surreal moment. I lived in New York when the attacks happened. I keenly remember how zealous Republicans and conservatives were about 9/11, how quick they were to pounce on anyone on the left side of the spectrum who said anything that even hinted at departure from the accepted narrative—and especially those who, along the way, departed from reality. And now, years down the line, the Republican Party standard-bearer comes to New York on 9/11 itself, palling around with someone who called those attacks an “inside job.”
You’ve seen that reference many times now in the last couple of days, but it’s worth unpacking the phrase in a paragraph. “Inside job,” with respect to 9/11, meant that the U.S. government had advance knowledge of the attacks and let them happen. Or even staged them. In some variants, Israel, naturally, was involved as well. I believe a lot of bad stuff about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney (still!), but I have never believed that. It’s loony tunes. But adherence to this zany theory was disturbingly widespread, at first on the far left before it spread to and was taken up by some on the far right. In polls at the time, up to a quarter of respondents, sometimes more, said they believed this silliness.
By the way, when I say that Loomer believes lunatic nonsense about the September 11 attacks, I’m not dredging up statements she made 20 years ago to criticize her today. HuffPost reported this week that just last year, Loomer “shared a video on X that said ‘9/11 was an Inside Job!’ and claimed it was somehow related to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s announcing $2.3 trillion in ‘lost’ government funds on Sept. 10, 2001.”