As Kevin McCarthy’s speakership went down in historic flames Tuesday, a number of members were fixated on a seemingly small but bizarre flash point: a call between Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and former President Donald Trump.
The phone discussion was about Gaetz’s plan to oust McCarthy, and even though Trump aides have consistently claimed the former president supports the now-former speaker, Gaetz has suggested that Trump actually supported his effort to remove McCarthy.
What isn’t contested is that Gaetz and Trump spoke about the matter recently, which the lawmaker confirmed on Monday. What is disputed is whether Trump was actually behind McCarthy.
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“Without getting too much into my private conversations with President Trump, that was most certainly not the sentiment that he shared with me,” Gaetz told The Daily Beast Monday night.
Asked how Trump could say one thing publicly about McCarthy and then say another thing privately, Gaetz had a wry response: “Tradition mostly.”
By Tuesday, Gaetz was being even more emphatic that he had Trump’s blessing for his campaign to oust McCarthy.
“My conversations with the former president leave me with great confidence that I did the right thing,” Gaetz told reporters.
But Gaetz’s claims have some important data points undermining his story.
For one, Trump issued a post on his social media app, Truth Social, calling into question the strategy of going after McCarthy.
“Why is it that Republicans are always fighting among themselves, why aren’t they fighting the Radical Left Democrats who are destroying our country,” Trump wrote midday Tuesday.
For another, some GOP members with direct lines to Trump told The Daily Beast that Gaetz didn’t have it right.
“I spoke to him twice on the phone today, and he still said he supports Kevin,” Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), a former aide to Trump, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday evening.
Miller said that, after speaking with Trump, he came away with the impression that the former president didn’t think Republican lawmakers “fighting with one another” was productive.
Miller then tore into Gaetz’s Trump phone conversation claims.
“You ever tend to get any detail out of Matt Gaetz, or are they all broad strokes? Because he can paint that pen in any which way the media will take it, and that’s why he’s so very good at what he does,” Miller said. “Kudos to him on that.”
Miller went on to emphasize his claim that Trump was supporting McCarthy, and he further called into question Gaetz’s takeaway.
“I did not get that sentiment, so, you know, broad strokes,” he said.
Another Republican lawmaker who spoke with Trump this week but spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity said it was their impression that Trump wasn’t leaning a particular way on McCarthy.
“He wasn’t against or for it,” this lawmaker said, adding that Trump encouraged them to “vote their conscience.”
As for McCarthy, when he was asked about Gaetz’s phone call claim at a late Tuesday evening press conference, McCarthy said he doubted Gaetz’s story was true.
Likewise, a Trump adviser told The Daily Beast they didn’t believe the former president had soured on McCarthy.
“Why would he flip on Kevin?” a Trump adviser said. “No.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who spoke to Trump this past weekend, said he didn’t totally know what Trump was thinking currently—but thought Trump was still behind McCarthy.
“I think so,” Jordan said of Trump’s support of McCarthy. “I support President Trump. I think Kevin supported President Trump. I think President Trump supported Kevin, but now we are where we are.”
NBC News reported late Tuesday that Trump advisers—such as Chris LaCivita—were referring questions on the matter back to Trump’s Truth Social post.
“I point you to President Trump’s Truth from earlier today,” LaCivita said.
A Trump spokesperson didn’t return The Daily Beast’s request for comment on this story.
Asked about Miller’s comments as he rushed to get away from reporters, Gaetz told The Daily Beast, “He wasn’t there.”
