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Some House Republican colleagues are looking to boot Matt Gaetz even as the firebrand Florida lawmaker leads a push to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, filing a so-called motion to vacate the chair late Monday.
Long peeved by Gaetz — who has targeted GOP leadership and undercut his party repeatedly — some Republicans are champing at the bit to expel the congressman if the House Ethics Committee investigating him finds wrongdoing, Fox News reported Sunday.
“No one can stand him at this point. A smart guy without morals,” one lawmaker told the outlet.
From the archives (September 2023): ‘He’s being squeezed’: McCarthy yields to right-flank insistence on Biden impeachment inquiry amid intensifying threat to speakership
Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker, wondered in a post on X, the former Twitter, whether anyone was doing as much for the Democratic Party, and to undermine Republicans, as Gaetz was.
Gaetz, who is rumored to be eyeing a run for Florida governor, brushed aside the expulsion threat, posting a “Game of Thrones” meme.
A motion to vacate requires a two-thirds vote to go through, meaning Democrats will hypothetically need to come on board, given the 221-to-212 Republican-to-Democrat makeup of the lower chamber.
Gaetz has professed his innocence in the ethics probe, which is reportedly nearing its conclusion.
The investigation is said to center around allegations that include sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and potential public corruption.
“ ‘I’m fine being investigated.’ ”
Republicans have a razor-thin four-seat majority in the lower chamber, which means that Gaetz poses an outsize threat to McCarthy’s speakership.
His motion to vacate, which he plans to introduce this week, will require a simple majority to pass.
“I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy. Look, the one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. He lied to Biden. He lied to House conservatives,” Gaetz told CNN “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper.
McCarthy in turn has expressed confidence that he will prevail if a motion to oust him is presented, even as early Tuesday he observed that the loss of five Republican votes would likely end his brief reign as speaker. Still, he remained sanguine, as he had been Sunday.
“So be it. Bring it on,” McCarthy told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “Let’s get over with it.”
Don’t miss: ‘So be it,’ says embattled House Speaker McCarthy as Republican rebel Gaetz vows ouster vote
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“I’ll survive,” he added. “You know this is personal with Matt. Matt voted against the most conservative ability to protect our border. He’s more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something.”
Democrats have signaled since last week that they’ll want concessions if they are to throw McCarthy a lifeline and rescue him from the forthcoming mutiny.
Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries said that his party’s posture would be determined in a caucus meeting early Tuesday. Several Democrats emerged from that closed-door session indicating that the party was united and saw no reason to rush to McCarthy’s aid.
Said progressive House Democrat Pradmila Jayapal of Washington state: “No one trusts Kevin McCarthy.”
She recalled that Democrats, during the January soap opera that ultimately placed the speaker’s gavel in McCarthy’s hand, remained united behind Jeffries as their preferred House speaker.
Justice Department officials advised in February against charging Gaetz with wrongdoing in the probe against him for sex trafficking.
The House Ethics Committee has reportedly been examining since, though not many details about the inquiry are known.
McCarthy publicly alleged the underpinning of Gaetz’s animosity toward him is his refusal to intervene in the ethics review.
Gaetz has denied that.
“Not at all, Jake. I am the most investigated man in the United States Congress. I’ve been cleared by the DOJ, the FEC by a 5-0 vote, and the people who spread criminal lies about me are sitting in federal prison right now,” Gaetz told CNN. “I’m fine being investigated.”
Catalyzing Gaetz’s recent push to give McCarthy the boot is the recent spending patch McCarthy brought to the House floor Saturday to stave off a government shutdown.
That bill kept the government’s lights on until Nov. 17 and allocated $16 billion to domestic disaster relief.
Gaetz has vehemently opposed temporary spending patches, and a slew of Republican holdouts have howled over the lack of gains for conservatives.
When he took to the House floor early Monday, Gaetz decried the “secret side deal” on Ukraine funding he claimed had been struck between the Biden White House and Speaker McCarthy.
Biden on Sunday called on Republicans to “keep their word about support for Ukraine.”
A version of this report appeared at NYPost.com.
Read on:
How Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy got to yes on their debt-ceiling compromise
Tucker Carlson questionnaire reveals a fault line among Republicans: U.S. support for Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion
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