Gaetz Delivers Stunning Rebuke to McCarthy: 'We Will See if They Bail Out Our Failed Speaker'
Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz is fed up with governing by continuing resolutions and omnibus legislation to avoid appropriations bills and government shutdowns — particularly over sensitive issues like Ukraine funding.
So, after the Senate on Tuesday tried to head off a a looming government shutdown with yet another bipartisan continuing resolution vote, Gaetz had a short — but stern — message from the House floor: “We will see if they bail out our failed speaker.”
Gaetz was one of over a dozen lawmakers who held up McCarthy’s rise to the speaker’s position in January, in part because the California Republican was deemed to be insufficiently conservative for a large slice of his own party.
McCarthy has only underscored this with attempts to strike bipartisan deals over appropriations bills that would keep the government open past the Oct. 1 start of the next fiscal year, particularly in regards to yet more spending on Ukraine with no endgame in sight. That’s something Gaetz and a number of other House Republicans oppose.
According to The Hill, the Senate seem to agree to kick the can down the road yet again with a continuing resolution that would keep the government funded in the short term until Nov. 17. The vote to advance the continuing resolution to the floor passed by a 77-19 margin, indicating broad bipartisan support.
“The vote puts the Senate on a path to pass a continuing resolution (CR) later this week that it could then send to the House to avoid a shutdown on Oct. 1,” The Hill reported.
“The House has been stuck on how to move forward with funding the government amid disputes among Republicans in the majority.
“If the Senate does approve a CR, it could put pressure on the House to bring it to the floor and avoid a shutdown, particularly in the lower chamber has not made much progress on its own.”
Given the vote to advance it, that showdown appears likely — and Gaetz is none too pleased about it, intimating that it might affect whether McCarthy still enjoys enough support to remain speaker.
“You are your record,” Gaetz began in a speech on the House floor. “And our record in this country right now is $33 trillion in debt, facing $2 trillion annual deficits.”
One thing I agree with my Democrat colleagues on is that for the last eight months, the House of Representatives has been poorly led.
We own that, and we have to do something about it.
My Democrat colleagues will have an opportunity to do something about that too, and we will… pic.twitter.com/KNkHls8nIf
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) September 26, 2023
He went on to joke about the indictment of Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez on bribery charges last week. FBI agents who searched the Menendez home in 2022 found not only almost a half-million dollars in cash but about $100,000 in gold bars, according to prosecutors.
“We’re in so much debt, we’re driving up deficits so fast, we are de-valuing American money so rapidly, that in America today, you can’t even bribe Democrat senators with cash alone,” Gaetz said. “You need to bring gold bars to get the job done just so that the bribes hold value.”
Gaetz went on to say he was opposed to continuing resolutions and in favor of voting on actual appropriations bills because “this is the only way to liberate this House in this country, from the scourge of governing by continuing resolution and omnibus legislation.”
“It is an insult to our governing authority to have the Senate latch Ukraine funding to the reauthorization of the [Federal Aviation Administration],” he continued.
“And the fact that we don’t” vote on funding independently, Gaetz said, “that is not a bug of the system. It’s a feature of the system.”
“And the one thing I agree with my Democrat colleagues on is that for the last eight months, this House has been poorly led. And we own that, and we have to do something about it.
“And you know what? My Democrat colleagues will have an opportunity to do something about that, too. And we will see if they bail out our failed speaker.”
The speech comes several weeks after Gaetz gave another speech that was far more explicit in challenging McCarthy over his failures to cut spending, saying McCarthy was “out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role.”
“The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate total compliance or remove you pursuant to a motion to vacate the chair,” he said, adding that “instead of cutting spending to raise the debt limit, you relied on budgetary gimmicks and rescissions so that you ultimately ended up serving as the valet to underwrite Biden’s debt and advanced suspending agenda.”
On this very floor in January, the whole world witnessed a historic contest for House Speaker.
I rise today to serve notice. Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role. The path forward for the House of Representatives is to… pic.twitter.com/1IFsrmT8KK
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) September 12, 2023
However, the problem for Gaetz when it comes to bringing McCarthy into compliance on this issue is the one-sided nature of the Senate vote.
While a vote to move forward the vehicle that would allow the continuing resolution to pass isn’t actually passing the continuing resolution, it stands to reason that a 77-19 vote to advance will also likely meet with a vote to pass — and put pressure on McCarthy to cobble together enough Republican and Democratic votes to ensure the government stays humming.
Gaetz is right, though: When McCarthy was elected speaker after numerous ballots in January, the reason for the delay was because conservatives were worried about exactly what is taking place here. Instead of cutting spending, instead of taking a knife to the Biden agenda and hacking huge bits of pork off, McCarthy has displayed the lack of backbone that got the country here in the first place.
Will the Democrats bail out a failed speaker by voting for the Senate’s bill? That remains to be seen. However, conservatives in the House GOP now know exactly how much trust they can place in Kevin McCarthy to get the job done: Zero.
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