Matt Gaetz Warns of 'Bloodshed' from Trump Supporters

Representative Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, warned of potential "violence" and "bloodshed" if efforts to prevent former President Donald Trump from being on 2024 election ballots are successful.

Trump is currently the clear frontrunner for the GOP's 2024 presidential nomination, leading the field of candidates by a wide double-digit margin and regularly polling north of 50 percent among Republicans. Meanwhile, some Trump critics have touted the 14th Amendment as potentially making the former president ineligible to hold elected office due to the January 6, 2021, riot carried out by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol.

Section 3 in the 14th Amendment states that a person who "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" after taking an oath of office to support the Constitution should be prevented from running for office again. While Trump has been criminally charged in connection to the events of January 6, he has not been convicted and the indictment does not include the charge of insurrection.

Nonetheless, some Trump critics say he is ineligible under the 14th Amendment. Legal efforts are underway in several states across the country to preemptively prevent him from appearing on the 2024 presidential ballot.

Gaetz, a staunch ally of the former president, discussed these efforts during an interview on the Driveway Liberty Podcast on Wednesday.

"I really worry that that type of action could lead to violence. And I am so wildly opposed to violence. I don't think it's how we should resolve our disputes," the Florida Republican said.

"But when you start telling people that they can't express their participation in this American experience through a vote, then they start looking for other ways, and they're not—the vote is the best way to do it," the GOP congressman said.

"The other ways are not so good. And I worry if they start to take the vote away, you could see bloodshed in this country like none of us want."

In an additional comment emailed to Newsweek on Thursday, Gaetz reiterated that he does not support political violence.

"I oppose political violence categorically. Historically, it can erupt if a populous is denied the choice of their leaders. Let's hope and pray that does not happen in America," the Republican said.

Efforts to block Trump from the ballot have been pushed forward in multiple states. On Wednesday, six voters in Colorado filed a lawsuit in their state, citing the 14th Amendment, in a bid to prevent Trump from being eligible to be on the ballot there. Last week in Florida, Judge Robin Rosenberg—who was appointed by President Barack Obama—swiftly dismissed a case challenging the former president's candidacy in a similar lawsuit.

While many Democrats have voiced support for preventing Trump from being on the ballot, conservative legal scholars have pushed forward the theory. William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas published a lengthy academic article discussing the possibility in August.

"Donald Trump cannot be president—cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office—unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on January 6," Baude told The New York Times in an interview last month, summarizing their findings.

Fellow GOP presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, also suggested he believed Trump violated the 14th Amendment.

"And so you can't be asking us to support somebody that's not perhaps even qualified under our Constitution. And I'm referring to the 14th Amendment. A number of legal scholars said that he is disqualified because of his actions on January 6," Hutchinson told CNN in August.

Trump and his allies have rejected the arguments of his critics.

The former president posted to his social media platform Truth Social on Monday, writing "almost all legal scholars have voiced opinions that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or standing relative to the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election." Lindsey Halligan, an attorney for the former president, told Newsmax this week that she's concerned the discussion about the 14th Amendment is "potentially tainting" a jury pool as Trump face's multiple indictments.

Whether Trump's supporters would turn to "violence" or "bloodshed" if he's blocked from the ballot is impossible to predict. Some analysts warned that his supporters would turn to violence if he lost the 2020 election and refused to concede. Those predictions proved accurate on January 6, when hundreds of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, smashing windows and fighting with police officers, in an effort to prevent the formal certification of President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.

Jon Lewis, research fellow at George Washington University's Program on Extremism, told Newsweek that "the right-wing extremist landscape has continued to target perceived enemies" since January 6.

Lewis said that when lawmakers like Gaetz make such comments, "their followers do not take that to mean they must vote in the next election to ensure effective congressional oversight of the executive branch. They view that as a call to arms ... This stochastic terrorism is aimed at dehumanizing and 'othering' their enemies, and has increasingly been used by influencers and elected officials across the online right-wing ecosystem."

Trump previously said he would expect "riots" if he doesn't secure the Republican nomination in 2024.

"I think you'd have riots," Trump told CNN in March. "I'm representing a tremendous many, many millions of people."

Update 09/07/23, 4:55 p.m. ET: Comment was added from extremism research fellow Jon Lewis.

Update 09/07/2023, 6:24 p.m. ET: A comment from Representative Matt Gaetz was added.