Rep. Matt Gaetz attends a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies and Innovation hearing about artificial intelligence on Capitol Hill July 18, 2023 in Washington, DC.
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On Monday, Rep. Matt Gaetz filed a “motion to vacate” Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.
A day later, the House successfully voted to kick McCarthy from his leadership post.
As a result, a GOP congressman from Louisiana is livid and said Gaetz got “schooled” by Democrats.
A Republican congressman from Louisiana vociferously went after Rep. Matt Gaetz on Wednesday, a day after the chamber voted to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker.
According to The Hill, Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana told reporters he believed Gaetz was “totally manipulated” into filing a “motion to vacate” on Monday, forcing the House to take a vote to remove McCarthy from the chamber’s top leadership position.
“Matt Gaetz just got schooled by AOC and others,” Graves said. “He was totally manipulated into doing this. There were eight so-called Republicans that got together with 208 Democrats to oust the Republican Speaker.”
As Graves noted, only a very small minority of Republican representatives — eight in total, including Gaetz — elected to vacate the speakership. And while it takes many more than eight votes to oust the speaker, the entire Democratic caucus voted in lock-step with the small group of GOP rebels, ultimately bringing together the simple majority vote needed to complete the task at hand.
Graves’ comments to reporters on Wednesday were not the first he’s made in recent days disparaging Gaetz. He’s also called the Florida congressman a “clown” who he said “would be a great dictator on a small island nation or something.”
The representative from Louisiana’s anger over McCarthy’s ouster hasn’t been contained to just Gaetz, instead spilling out toward the GOP caucus at large.
During Tuesday’s vote, Graves took the floor to angrily call out his fellow Republicans for fundraising off the speakership drama, noting that “All of a sudden my phone keeps sending text messages, text messages saying, ‘Hey, give me money… Oh look, give me money, I filed the motion to vacate using official actions.'”
“Official actions to raise money,” Graves said, “It’s disgusting. It’s what’s disgusting about Washington.”
The House will not meet again until next week when they’ll reconvene to deliberate and vote on a new speaker. And while some members of Congress have voiced their displeasure with the decision, Graves insisted it may be for the health and safety of the legislative body.
“If we had stayed together in the meeting last night, I think that you would have seen fists thrown,” he said.