Critics are giving Matt Gaetz a lesson in recent music history, after the former Republican congressman from Florida tweeted about Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show.
“The halftime show you just watched is clearly the regime’s response to Trump’s historic gains with black men,” Gaetz, who was briefly President Donald Trump’s selection for attorney general, wrote on X.
Gaetz’s message got saddled with a community note pointing out that the decision to book Lamar for the gig couldn’t have been a response to Trump winning the presidency, given that it was announced about two months before the election.
But social media users also made reference to something else: A House Ethics Committee investigation that found Gaetz paid a 17-year-old for sex and took illicit drugs while in office.
Gaetz has denied the allegations, but critics were quick to remind him of that report ― and they did it by using lines from Lamar’s hit song “Not Like Us,” which the rapper performed on Sunday.
The song is a diss track aimed at arch-rival Drake, who has sued, calling it “false and malicious.” The lyrics contain lines such as “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young” and “tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A minor.”
In case Gaetz wasn’t familiar with the song, critics let him know: