While his father is known as a staid member of the state's Republican establishment, Gaetz quickly earned a more rambunctious reputation in Tallahassee. He staked out a hardline position on the death penalty, including support for the return of firing squads (Gaetz maintains it's actually the "most humane" form of execution).

He continued earning notoriety beyond regular business hours. At one point, he got himself sued when his dog, Scarlet, bit a man in the face at a restaurant in Tallahassee. At another point, he was among a group of state lawmakers implicated in vaguely described "unruly" behavior during a Republican Party retreat at a hotel at Disney World.

Undeterred by any of this—or by an unflattering mugshot floating around from a 2008 DUI charge (which was dismissed)—Gaetz ran for Congress in 2016, seizing on the populist moment while voters were swooning for Trump. Deep into the campaign season, when other Republicans with more to lose were keeping their distance, Gaetz held close to Trump—appearing with the candidate and speaking at Trump rallies whenever he could.

They won election on the same day and both quickly set about making a stink in Washington. A month after being sworn in, Gaetz introduced a bill to abolish the EPA, an audacious proposal for any lawmaker—let alone the new guy—and one with absolutely no chance of passage.

It is often difficult to tell whether Gaetz is legislating sincerely or legislating with tongue in cheek. Over beers, Gaetz conceded to me that the EPA bill was the latter, a way to highlight his beefs with centralized regulation. "I was making a statement," he said.

In November, Gaetz called for Mueller's firing, likening the special counsel's probe to a "coup d'état."

Trump, who adores loyalty, has taken notice. In December, the president returned to Gaetz's district for a rally in Pensacola. He brought Gaetz along on Air Force One and invited him to give introductory remarks at the event.

Backstage, the bonding continued. After the last warm-up act concluded, the loudspeakers at the Pensacola Bay Center began blasting "Let's Spend the Night Together" by the Rolling Stones. "You hear that?" Trump asked Gaetz, just before walking out to take the stage. "It's the Stones. Only Trump gets the Stones."

A visitor to Gaetz's Capitol Hill office gets a sense of the congressman's priorities as soon as he or she enters. Just inside the door, a flatscreen monitor mounted on the wall displays the congressman's mentions on Twitter, streaming in real time. That TV lit up spectacularly at the end of January, when Gaetz took Charles Johnson—a right-wing Internet troll—to the State of the Union.

The resulting firestorm prompted a rare expression of regret from Gaetz. Of course, when such controversies envelop the president's allies, he tends to appreciate them all the more. A week after the State of the Union, the congressman sat down with me at his office. Leaning back in an armchair, his chief of staff looking on, Gaetz argued with great assuredness that the attention was a good thing.

For a few days, he wasn't invited on Fox, but soon his ubiquity on the network was restored. To hammer this home, Gaetz later texted me a photo of a bank of televisions featuring various cable channels in primetime. There, broadcasting simultaneously, was Gaetz's face, beaming from Fox News and Fox Business Network. One interview was live, another had been taped.

"If you could confirm that Melania thinks I'm good-looking," he told me, "that would be awesome."

He clearly appreciates the fame-making aspects of being on TV—and in Trump's corner. But Gaetz points out that there's also political benefit. Keeping himself on Trump's radar and in Trump's ear helps his constituents in Florida, he says.

For example, in January, when Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced his intentions to open Florida's waters to offshore drilling—an unpopular move in a state still coping with the effects of the BP oil spill—Gaetz implored the president to intervene. "He told me he would act very strongly for me on that, and he did," Gaetz said. (It's not clear what role Trump played in altering Interior's plans, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment on this story. After meeting with Governor Scott, Zinke announced he was exempting Florida from the new policy.)