Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff and former chief of staff for the House Republican Caucus, accused Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Wednesday of having ulterior motives while presenting himself as a fiscally conservative legislator.
“The people who were masquerading as fiscal conservatives really, really aren’t,” Short said on CNN’s The Lead, the day after Gaetz orchestrated the removal of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as Speaker of the House.
“Matt Gaetz, to say he came here as a fiscal crusader—it’s more likely he came here for the teenage interns on Capitol Hill, to be honest.”
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Gaetz is the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation into alleged sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and bribery. That probe originally began in 2021 but was put on hold while the Department of Justice began its own sex trafficking investigation due to allegations that Gaetz had had sex with a 17-year-old girl. The DOJ ultimately decided against filing charges, and Gaetz has denied all allegations against him.
In voting to put an end to McCarthy’s nine-month stint as Speaker, Gaetz cited McCarthy siding with Democrats on a deal to temporarily fund the government and avoid a shutdown last week—a deal that didn’t make nearly enough spending cuts that Gaetz and some others to McCarthy’s right wanted.
But Gaetz’s reasoning, Short argued Wednesday, doesn’t hold up.
“He has voted for continuing resolutions. He has voted for omnibus bills. He voted for trillions of dollars in COVID spending. Even this year, he put forward an earmark, and yet he has presented himself as, ‘I’m doing this for the fiscal benefit of the country,’” Short said. “That’s not honest. The guy just has a distaste for Kevin and used the rules to dethrone him.”
After Tuesday’s unprecedented vote, Gaetz went on Fox News and denied that he has “personal animus” toward his colleague.
