Rep. Matt Gaetz Of Florida On Meet The Press The backlash from the right for ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy continues against Rep. Matt Gae
The backlash from the right for ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy continues against Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Recently, Americans for Tax Reform, a group founded by inside-the-Beltway activist Grover Norquist, released an ad in Florida urging Republicans to tell Gaetz to “stop voting with Democrats and start siding with Florida taxpayers.”
The ad criticizes Gaetz for voting “in lockstep with House Democrats to sink the House Republican plan to pass historic spending cuts and increase border security.”
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That referred to the Spending Reduction and Border Security Act, a stopgap spending bill championed by McCarthy that passed the House in September.
The bill would have funded the federal government through Oct. 31 while imposing an 8% cut in all spending except for national defense, the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, and designated disaster relief.
The measure also sought to create a Fiscal Commission to find ways to reach a sustainable, long-term debt-to-GDP ratio over the long term, as well as prohibiting funding to tear down any section of the border wall and to transport illegal immigrants to the interior of the country.
While it was popular with almost all Republicans, the bill had no chance of becoming law, even if it survived the Democratic-controlled Senate, because President Joe Biden vowed to veto it.
Yet ATR noted in a statement, “Gaetz, who not only votes with Democrats, but hires Democrat staffers to fill his office, led a cabal of 8 Republican House Members including Rep. Matt Rosendale – who prayed for House Republicans to lose the midterm elections – and Rep. Ken Buck who seeks to leave Congress to join CNN.”
In the actual ad distributed in Florida, ATR argued, “Why did Matt Gaetz join Nancy Pelosi, AOC and over 200 Democrats in killing the Republican plan to cut Washington spending and strengthen the border? Because Matt Gaetz would rather promote himself than protect taxpayers.”
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“Matt Gaetz spends too much time chasing TV cameras and not enough time working together with conservatives to reign in Washington spending.
The ad then provides the phone to Gaetz’s district office in Crestview.
Gaetz was actually one of 21 Republicans who voted with Democrats to defeat that bill. That list included familiar conservatives such as Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Matt Rosendale of Montana, and Troy Nehls of Texas.
Gaetz said last month that he opposed the bill because it would have actually weakened the GOP’s position on border security and did nothing to defund special prosecutor Jack Smith’s pursuit of former President Donald Trump or the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the government against conservatives.
On Sunday, Gaetz appeared on Meet The Press and defended his position.
Gaetz said the battle for McCarthy’s post was a fight for average American families who are about to be financially “crushed” because Congress won’t follow its own laws and get spending and debt under control.
“To me, people who are willing to drive $2 trillion annual deficits are the agents of chaos. The people who want budgets are the agents of regular order,” said Gaetz.
Gaetz also repeatedly rebutted left-wing anchor Kristen Welker’s arguments about McCarthy’s absence undermining the work of Congress, especially as war just broke out in the Gaza Strip.
Responding to Welker’s claim that the House is rudderless and that there was no plan to replace McCarthy, Gaetz noted that the new speaker will likely be elected within a week, and it will be an easier choice with just two candidates — Reps. Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise — than if there were multiple options.
“You are watching the (replacement) plan play out,” Gaetz told Welker. “And by the way, if we have a Speaker Jim Jordan or a Speaker Steve Scalise at the end of the coming week, there won’t be a single Republican, sans Kevin McCarthy, who won’t believe we have upgraded the position.”
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“With Jim Jordan or Steve Scalise, we will undeniably have an upgrade,” he added. “I think that you’re really going to see an invigorated Republican Party. We were in the doldrums with Kevin McCarthy.”
He also pointed out that the House would still be working if Rep. Patrick McHenry, the temporary speaker, had kept lawmakers in Washington instead of sending them home.
He also pushed back on Welker’s contention that the controversial, previously unprecedented move of axing McCarthy is hurting Israel right now as it defends itself from terrorist attacks by Hamas.
Gaetz noted that current U.S. military aid to Israel is appropriated for the long term, and that Israel has not asked for anything at this point.
Gaetz also rejected Welker’s assertion that the budget won’t come together as the lawmaker hopes under a new speaker, saying the next House leader will end the approach by McCarthy and other leaders of both parties to govern by continuing resolutions and all-in-one spending bills.
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