Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is so committed to opposing Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s flailing House speaker bid that he offered to resign from Congress Thursday night if a faction of Democrats were to vote with Republicans to allow a more “moderate” member of the GOP to take the gavel.
Appearing on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show, Gaetz was asked about his interactions with Democrats on the House floor, many of which were caught on film and spurred curiosity online.
“My conversations with Democrats have largely been about making sure that they don’t leave the floor for dinner or fundraisers or whatnot. We need them to stay there so that the denominator in the equation on the election of the speaker allows us to have leverage to push for many of the things we’ve been discussing,” Gaetz said. If enough Democrats are absent for a vote, that could give McCarthy the majority he needs to become speaker.
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Gaetz, who has opposed the California congressman in each of the 11 ballots cast thus far, was also asked about former President Donald Trump—who he has vociferously supported—throwing his support behind McCarthy.
“I love President Trump. I defended him a great deal in Congress,” Gaetz said, before criticizing some members of his administration. “But HR wasn’t always his strong suit. President Trump got us folks like Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr and Jim Mattis and Mark Esper — people who didn’t always advance an America-first policy.”
“So you say he’s wrong on this?” Ingraham asked.
“I do. I think President Trump is wrong to the extent that he supports Kevin McCarthy,” Gaetz said, before reaffirming his support for Trump’s 2024 campaign.
When Ingraham presented a scenario in which a bipartisan deal is struck for a moderate candidate, Gaetz said he would want nothing to do with it, and that it was extremely unlikely anyways.
“These 212 Democrats are going to vote for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) every single time. He is an historic candidate for them. They’re not going to cleave off,” Gaetz said.
Indeed, Jeffries has received the entire Democratic vote during each ballot.
“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.”
Gaetz went on to say that if McCarthy should seek to make concessions to the far-right caucus in order to win, he would sentence himself to governing in a “straitjacket for the entirety of his term.”
