Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said on Monday that House Democrats can have Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy, if they want him.
Speaking to reporters after filing a motion to remove McCarthy as the GOP leader, the Fort Walton Beach Republican said, “If there’s a deal made with Democrats, the only deal is to make one with McCarthy because I’m not offering anything and won’t offer anything.”
“If the Democrats want to own Kevin McCarthy, they can have him,” Gaetz continued.
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“Because one thing I’m at peace with is when we stand here a week from now, I won’t own Kevin McCarthy anymore. He won’t belong to me. So if the Democrats wanna adopt him, they can adopt him.”
Gaetz also denied McCarthy’s accusation that Gaetz was animated by his personal contempt for the speaker.
“For some people,” Gaetz told reporters, “policy failures are recast as personal because their own failures are personally embarrassing to them.”
“This isn’t personal.”
Gaetz then ticked off the rules, adopted by Republicans in January and agreed to by McCarthy in order to make him the new speaker, that McCarthy had violated. They included:
- Allowing a 72-hour period between finalization of legislation and voting on it.
- Not putting legislative items valued at more than $100 million on the “suspension agenda,” meaning they did not require formal debate.
- Abiding by a rule to use Democrats to pass legislation that a majority of Republicans oppose. Gaetz said that happened with the last bill for funding the Ukraine war.
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Gaetz did not mention one that he has repeatedly brought up in recent days: voting for single-subject spending bills.
“Does this sound personal to you?” Gaetz asked reporters.
“I’m pointing to specific things that Kevin agreed to that he hasn’t complied with,” he added. “He’s just trying to subjugate his real, and significant, breaches of our agreement as some sort of personal dispute.”
“But that says more about him than it does about what we’re trying to do to change Washington.”
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