Laura Ingraham spent some time Thursday night grilling Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz on the growing dissent within the Republican party over Kevin McCarthy – and tried to gauge what options he and the rest of the “never Kevin” component actually have.
Detailing all of the concessions that McCarthy met the far-right outliers of his party with in order to secure their vote for House speaker over the last week, Ingraham appeared confused Thursday as to what the former minority leader needs to actually do to gain Gaetz and others’ support.
“I wouldn’t be betting on my vote for Kevin McCarthy under almost any circumstance,” Gaetz said. “But it’s important to note that all of those bullet points that you just presented…”
The host of “The Ingraham Angle” interrupted him then.
“That’s personal then. You just made this very principled point — no, no, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say, ‘I’m a man of principal, and I believe in X, Y and Z. But if he gives me X, Y and Z, I’m not gonna vote for him.’ What? How does that make sense?” she said.
Without addressing the concessions directly, Gaetz argued that the reason he’d never vote for McCarthy as speaker goes back to him resenting “the extent to which Kevin McCarthy utilizes the lobbyists and the special interests to be able to dictate how political decisions are made, how policy decisions are made, and how leadership decisions are made.”
“Kevin McCarthy is the masthead of the lobby core,” he said.
In other words, drain the swamp.
“Kevin McCarthy has been in the leadership for 14 years, and he has sold shares of himself to special interests, to political action committees,” Gaetz maintained. “That’s why I don’t think he is an appropriate choice.”
Gaetz, as has been well documented, is a major supporter of Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, who he argued in the “Ingraham Angle” segment could win the House speaker seat if he chooses to campaign upon McCarthy’s exit.
The congressman’s passion for the matter goes so deep, in fact, that he even promised on-air to resign if any moderate is elected to the role with an assist from Democrats, as has been reported as a possibility.
“Will you be OK, then, if there’s ultimately a deal struck with moderate Democrats that give Democrats kind of a co-control of the committee?” Ingraham asked. “You’re fine with that?”
“No, absolutely not,” Gaetz responded. “That will not happen.”
“Well, that’s what happened,” Ingraham shot back.
“No, listen, i’m on the floor, Laura. These 212 Democrats are going to vote for Hakeem Jeffries every single time,” Gaetz maintained. “He is a historic candidate for them, they are not going to cleave off under any circumstance. I assure you. If Democrats join up to elect a moderate Republican, I will resign from the House of Representatives. That is how certain I am. I can assure your viewers that won’t happen.”
Watch the full “Ingraham Angle” segment in the video above.
