Rep. Matt Gaetz on Tuesday defended his effort to eject House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, after some of his critics alleged that “chaos” would ensue if McCarthy is removed.
Gaetz won. A vote of 216-210 ousted McCarthy Tuesday.
In a floor speech, the Fort Walton Beach Republican asserted that chaos instead was “somebody that we cannot trust with their word.”
In his speech, Gaetz noted that the White House, House Democrats and the GOP conservatives share one thing: that McCarthy told them all “something at one point or another that he really didn’t mean and didn’t intend to live up to.”
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“I don’t think voting against Kevin McCarthy is chaos,” Gaetz continued. “I think $33 trillion in debt is chaos. I think that facing a $2.2 trillion annual deficit is chaos. I think that not passing single-subject spending bills is chaos.”
“I think the fact that we have been governed in this country since the mid-[19]90s by continuing resolutions and omnibus [bills] is chaos,” Gaetz added to House members. “We have been out of compliance with budget laws most of my life, most of many of your lives.”
He pointed out that it was “fundamentally unserious” to have spending bills that include the Pentagon and the Border Patrol with the Departments of Labor and Education.
And he argued it was ridiculous to take oversight as a serious House function when McCarthy has yet to issue a subpoena for Hunter Biden.
The Florida congressman argued that he seeks long-lasting process reforms that would outlast McCarthy, himself, and the rest of Congress — reforms that even some Democrats say would be “worthy and helpful” to the House.
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Gaetz maintained that such reforms can only be achieved with single-subject spending bills, an open process for making amendments, and other initiatives championed by those Republicans who cut a deal with McCarthy in January to make him speaker.
Gaetz said the important thing is that the public would see Congress actually doing its work.
“That’s something the American people expect. That’s something Speaker McCarthy hasn’t delivered, and that’s why I’ve moved to vacate the chair,” said Gaetz.
“I take no lecture from those who would grovel and bent knee for the lobbyists and special interests who own our leadership, hollow out this town, and borrow against the future of our future generations,” he added.
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