Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), displeased with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) leading the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as Speaker of the House, dished some gossip about the Florida congressman to CNN on Wednesday.
Mullin began by complaining to congressional reporter Manu Raju that after the allegation that Gaetz had had sex with a 17-year-old girl became known in early 2021, “the media didn’t give [him] the time of day.”
That allegation, which Gaetz has denied, spurred an investigation by the Department of Justice, which in February opted not to file charges. A House Ethics Committee investigation into that matter, as well as illicit drug use and bribery, among other things, is ongoing.
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“And there’s a reason why no one in the Congress came and defended him: because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor—that all of us had walked away—of the girls that he had slept with,” Mullin continued. “He would brag about how he would crush E.D. medicine and chase it with energy drinks so he could go all night. This was obviously before he got married.”
Gaetz, in a statement to CNN that anchor Anderson Cooper later read on air, denied his colleague’s claim.
“I don’t think Markwayne Mullin and I have said 20 words to each other on the House floor. This is a lie from someone who doesn’t know me and who is coping with the death of the political career of his friend Kevin,” the statement read. “Thoughts and prayers.”
Mullin also depicted Gaetz as an attention seeker.
“All of a sudden he found fame because he opposed the Speaker of the House back in November,” he said of Gaetz, who had a leading role in McCarthy’s drawn-out bid for Speaker this past January. “And he’s always stayed there. And he was never going to leave until he got this last moment of fame…by going after a motion to vacate.”
