The animosity between former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was on display again Tuesday, when the latter interrupted an interview between McCarthy and CNN on the floor of the Republican National Convention to mock him about not having a speaking gig at the event.
The pair have been sparring for more than a year. Gaetz told colleagues that he led the effort to remove McCarthy as speaker last fall after the then-California congressman revived a House Ethics Committee probe into sex trafficking allegations against him, The Daily Beast reported in January. For his part, McCarthy has said that Gaetz “belongs in jail,” and at a Georgetown University event in April, told attendees that he is no longer speaker because “one person wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old.” That congressional probe is ongoing. Federal prosecutors decided not to charge Gaetz in February 2023, and Gaetz has maintained his innocence.
All that came to the forefront during a hostile exchange Tuesday in Milwaukee. As McCarthy was speaking to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Gaetz burst into frame, badgering McCarthy with rhetorical questions about when he would be speaking at the convention.
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“What night are you speaking? Are you speaking tonight, or?” Gaetz began, a jab at McCarthy not being on the list of speakers, while Gaetz is.
McCarthy, not turning to look at Gaetz, responded: “He’s got an ethics complaint about paying—sleeping with a 17-year-old.”
Gaetz shot back: “Hey, if you took that stage, you would get booed off of it. You would get booed off the stage.”
Afterwards, a man behind Gaetz—whose identity wasn’t immediately clear—told him to “shut up.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” he said, prompting the MAGA congressman to reply: “I don’t even know who you are, man.”
“It doesn’t fucking matter who I am,” the man responded. “Don’t be an asshole.”
Prior to Gaetz’s interruption, McCarthy had been arguing that the GOP was “more united” than in 2016.
