The GOP is slowly closing in on taking control of the House of Representatives by the slimmest of margins and if they are able to do so, the focus will quickly turn to whether Kevin McCarthy will assume the speaker’s gavel from Nancy Pelosi, something that won’t happen if Rep. Matt Gaetz has anything to say about it.
The fiery Florida Republican has been an outspoken critic of the California congressman’s timid leadership and, on Monday, he strongly emphasized that there will be much resistance to the current House minority leader advancing to the top spot, vowing that he won’t support him and that he isn’t the only one.
Gaetz appeared with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on his podcast when the topic turned to the possibility of McCarthy becoming Speaker of the House and the “critical mass” of those who will oppose him.
After quipping that there are at least five GOP lawmakers who would rather be “waterboarded by Liz Cheney” than vote for Kevin McCarthy, Gaetz declined to name names when pressed by the host.
“Well, I think that they would be the people that reliably adhere to the promises that they make to their voters,” he said. “I’m not here to like out or dox anybody. I’ll let people make their own announcements in their own time.”
“I’m making my announcement, which is that I’m not voting for Kevin McCarthy. I’m not voting for him tomorrow. I’m not voting for him on the floor. And I am certain that there is a critical mass of people who hold my precise view,” he added.“ And so the sooner we can sort of dispense with the notion that Kevin is going to be speaker, then we can get to the important work…”
As of early Tuesday morning, the Fox News election tracker has the GOP at 217 seats, one away from flipping control of the House with 13 races still undecided.
(Image: Screengrab/Fox News)
Earlier in the day on another podcast, Gaetz said, “The policies Kevin McCarthy has pushed, they are as unhelpful as they are unserious.”
“His Commitment to America is predicated on the notion of using federal tax dollars to go hire 200,000 more cops. You know what? In my community, we hire our own cops and pay for them out of our own tax funds. And so if in Detroit, they want to go defund the police, I don’t think the Floridians should have to pay for it,” he added. “Apparently, Kevin Mccarthy does. He also thinks we should have the Congress rate your local D.A. Guess what? In Florida, we don’t need anyone in Congress rating our local D.A.s because when we have local D.A.’s who don’t follow the law, our governor, Ron DeSantis, removes them, as he did recently with a central Florida D.A. who just said he wasn’t going to enforce the law out of wokeism.”
“I have spoken with many Republicans in Congress and many who will join our ranks soon. None are actually inspired by Kevin McCarthy, though many feel financially beholden to him because he is the LeBron James of special interest fundraising in this last cycle. Kevin McCarthy, his team, they raised half a billion dollars in campaign money. That buys a lot of friends. Or, at a minimum, rents them,” Gaetz said.
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