BREAKING NEWS: Matt Gaetz Says He Has 'Enough Republicans' To Oust Kevin McCarthy From Speaker Role

Forbes Breaking News

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) speaks to reporters after launching his attempt to take down Speaker McCarthy.

Transcript

00:00 Mr. Gates, how many Republicans do you have with you in this effort?

00:02 Well, I have enough Republicans where at this point next week, one of two things will happen.

00:07 Kevin McCarthy won't be the Speaker of the House or he'll be the Speaker of the House

00:10 working at the pleasure of the Democrats.

00:13 And I'm at peace with either result because the American people deserve to know who governs

00:17 them.

00:18 And the Speaker...

00:19 I'm sorry, I'm going to let her have her question.

00:20 Yeah.

00:21 So you've made it clear that if this fails, you will try again.

00:23 How soon would that happen?

00:25 Well, I'm not so pessimistic as to immediately accept that it will fail.

00:28 I think that's the likely outcome.

00:30 But you know, this won't be the only time.

00:32 That's probably all I'll say on that.

00:34 Has the Speaker talked to you, reached out to you at all in any way, touched you on the

00:37 floor just now?

00:38 Yeah, he hasn't talked to me since he appointed me to the National Defense Conference Committee

00:41 and we talked about some of our aligned defense priorities.

00:43 But that was some weeks ago.

00:44 Mr. Gates, what do you think means that there's a number of Republicans now that say they're

00:45 keeping an open mind to the motion to vacate?

00:46 Well, I hold no malice toward any Republican who doesn't support the motion to vacate.

00:58 I believe the basis for the motion to vacate is Kevin McCarthy's repeated breach of the

01:04 agreement that he made in January.

01:07 Just look at the breach that we've seen over the last few weeks.

01:09 He blew past the pre-COVID spending top line he agreed to.

01:12 He put a bill on the floor to fund the entire government without 72 hours to review it in

01:17 violation of the agreement he made.

01:19 He said that there would never be a bill on the floor of the House that spent more than

01:22 $100 million without the opportunity for amendment.

01:25 And yet the last continuing resolution violated that agreement as well.

01:29 He also agreed to a rule that he would never use the Democrats to roll a majority of the

01:35 majority.

01:36 But in the last vote on Ukraine, we had a majority of the majority vote no, and yet

01:42 that was not something that the leadership honored.

01:44 They used Democrat votes to send more money to Ukraine.

01:47 And maybe the last straw for me was learning that Kevin McCarthy had created a secret side

01:54 deal with President Biden on Ukraine while we were in the middle of this government funding

02:00 battle.

02:01 A secret side deal on Ukraine is not what the American people want to see out of a Republican

02:04 speech.

02:05 He denied that.

02:06 If it's likely to fail as you expect, what did you accomplish?

02:11 Well I think the American people deserve to know the coalition that really governs them.

02:15 And Kevin McCarthy likes to pretend that he makes coalition with conservatives.

02:19 But all he really does is break his word with conservatives.

02:22 The coalition that really runs this country is the Uniparty.

02:25 It is the Biden-McCarthy-Jeffrey's government, and that is what we will demonstrate with

02:29 this vote.

02:30 If you succeed, what do you expect?

02:31 Why do you suspect that he made a side deal on Ukraine with Biden?

02:34 Well because Joe Biden said he made a side deal, House Democrats said he made a side

02:38 deal, and when the Speaker's office was asked about a side deal, they made some opaque reference

02:43 to wanting to support Ukraine and do border funding.

02:46 And as I said in my remarks on the floor earlier today, regardless of how you feel about Ukraine

02:51 money or border money, these two things should not be lumped together.

02:55 They deserve their own dignity and their own vote.

02:58 And people are tired of seeing the ways of Washington that jam everything together in

03:02 order to really frustrate actual legislature.

03:05 If you succeed, McCarthy's almost certainly going to put himself up as a candidate for

03:10 Speaker again, and that may mean there's no one who can get 218 votes.

03:14 Are you prepared to go through that possibility with no one getting 218 votes?

03:17 I would think that if it took Kevin McCarthy 15 rounds to become Speaker, and after eight

03:23 months of a failed Speakership, and after a successful removal vote, as your hypothesis

03:28 would portend, that he would take a hint.

03:30 Do you have someone?

03:31 Are you going to say anything to any Democrats about this?

03:32 If it were serious, would you be trying to convince them?

03:36 I have made no deal with Democrats because I believe that Democrats should vote against

03:41 Kevin McCarthy for free.

03:43 It's Kevin McCarthy who's out there offering deals to Democrats.

03:46 So if there's a deal made with Democrats, the only deal is to make one with McCarthy,

03:52 because I'm not offering anything and won't offer anything.

03:54 And by the way, if the Democrats want to own Kevin McCarthy, they can have him.

03:59 Because one thing I'm at peace with is when we stand here a week from now, I won't own

04:05 Kevin McCarthy anymore.

04:06 He won't belong to me.

04:08 So if the Democrats want to adopt him, they can adopt him.

04:12 If you're successful, who would be your alternative?

04:15 Who would you be putting up there if you're successful?

04:18 Our number two is Steve Scalise.

04:20 I think very highly of Steve Scalise.

04:22 I would vote for Steve Scalise.

04:24 I would probably vote for at least 100 Republicans in our caucus and maybe 100 other Americans

04:29 out there who wouldn't necessarily need to be a member of the body to be considered for

04:32 the speakership.

04:33 But I am not going to pass over Steve Scalise just because he has blood cancer and is going

04:37 through treatment.

04:38 What would you say to members who have worked so hard to try and get these appropriations

04:43 bills through that's finally happening.

04:45 Now they say they don't want to be distracted from that.

04:47 What do you say to those members who don't want to vote against McCarthy for that reason?

04:51 Well, mostly I would say you're welcome because we weren't endeavoring on the appropriations

04:56 process earnestly until we held a political gun to the speaker's head last week.

05:02 We left for a six week vacation and we'd only passed one of our appropriations bills, the

05:09 veterans bill.

05:10 If Kevin McCarthy was serious about appropriations, we'd have been here all of July.

05:16 We would have been here in August and we would have been doing the people's work, passing

05:19 their budget.

05:20 The American people are tired of Washington DC not having a budget running $2 trillion

05:25 annual deficits sitting atop a $33 trillion debt.

05:27 And if this country is going down, I'm going down fighting.

05:32 I mean it's happening now, right?

05:33 Y'all were supposed to be back home in your districts.

05:35 That hasn't happened.

05:36 There are appropriation bills on the calendar.

05:38 I know it might've taken a while to get here, but you're here.

05:41 And so what do you say to your colleagues who say, we can't support this because we

05:44 want to get this done.

05:45 We want to get the government funded.

05:46 Well, I would suggest if we were real serious about that process, we wouldn't be having

05:50 four day work weeks.

05:51 I mean, we, we started votes tonight at 6 30 PM on a Monday.

05:56 Most Americans don't start work at 6 30 PM on a Monday and end a few hours later.

06:00 Right?

06:01 So I don't believe that the level of effort that you're seeing out of the Congress this

06:05 week is reflective of the momentum that we had built previously.

06:10 But you're going to need Democrats.

06:11 You're going to need Democrats to vote with you to oust McCarthy and you're criticizing

06:14 McCarthy for having to potentially need Democrats to keep him in the job.

06:18 I mean, aren't you pretty much doing the exact same thing here?

06:21 Mano, the yellow brick road of working with Democrats has been paved, constructed, engineered,

06:27 and architected by Kevin McCarthy.

06:30 Look no further than the debt limit deal, a deal he passed with Democrats.

06:33 Look no further than the last continuing resolution, which he passed with Democrats.

06:37 And by the way, if he's able to stay in power, it will be him working for the Democrats continuing

06:43 to do their bidding.

06:44 So this is a revealing exercise and I think it'll show the country who's really in trouble.

06:49 Most Republicans still do support McCarthy.

06:52 So why bring this up if you don't have the support of most of your conference?

06:55 Well, he doesn't have my support anymore and he doesn't have the support of a requisite

06:59 number of Republicans to continue as the Republican speaker.

07:03 Now he may continue as the House speaker and he may continue as a speaker of the Democrats

07:08 and some sort of uniparty coalition, but he is not going to be a speaker in power as a

07:13 consequence of Republican votes based on the number of people who are going to be with

07:16 him.

07:17 Is this like a personal disagreement you have with McCarthy or is this solely just on-

07:20 It's so funny that I come out here and I've been doing this for a great number of days

07:25 with all of you and I lay out in technicolor the specific areas of breach of the agreement,

07:30 breaching the 72 hour rule, breaching the suspension rule, blowing past the top lines,

07:34 not passing single subject spending bills, and yet the McCarthy operation continues to

07:39 try to make this some sort of personal beef.

07:41 No one seems to be real eager in engaging me on the substance of my argument, which

07:46 is that we need single subject spending bills, we need to return to pre-COVID spending.

07:49 But some people try to make every policy disagreement personal because they are so personally embarrassed

07:57 from their own failures.

07:59 So this has nothing to do with a personality, this has to do with breach of an agreement.

08:04 I laid that breach out weeks ago, I stood on the floor, you all covered it, and I said

08:08 these are the areas of breach, they have to be rectified, instead of getting any sincere

08:12 effort to resolve that, you know we heard the speaker's profanity and his bluster, and

08:17 that's simply not strong leadership.

08:18 Do you believe that those-

08:20 I'll go to Rachel next.

08:22 Are you concerned that some conservatives who agree that McCarthy is in breach of these

08:26 promises he made in January are not backing your effort?

08:29 People like Chip Roy, Byron Donalds, Thomas Massey, obviously somebody who tried to oust

08:34 Boehner says that this could backfire on conservatives.

08:37 Are you worried about that pressure and that fracture in conservatives actually undercutting

08:41 you?

08:42 No, listen, Chip Roy and Thomas Massey, we all want to get to the same place.

08:46 We all want to have less spending, we want to return to the budget process that is in

08:50 law, and I hold no ill will toward them if they make a different tactical choice than

08:57 I've made.

08:58 So if my dear friends, who I agree with on almost everything, Mr. Roy and Mr. Perry and

09:02 Mr. Massey want to own Kevin McCarthy, then that can be their choice and they can make

09:08 whatever choice they'd like.

09:10 Does Trump support this effort?

09:11 Does Trump support this effort?

09:12 You have threatened that if you fail, you will continue to call up-

09:16 That question's already been asked.

09:17 Do you believe that your fellow Republicans who vote in favor of Kevin McCarthy should

09:23 receive primary challenges in the 2024 election?

09:27 Listen, some of them, but certainly not all of them.

09:29 There'll be a number of great conservatives and friends of mine who do vote with Speaker

09:34 McCarthy.

09:35 I don't have confidence in him anymore, and I think a requisite number of Republicans

09:39 have lost confidence such that the only way he'll be able to stay in power is by working

09:43 for the Democrats.

09:44 I'm sorry, I'm going to try to go to some people that haven't had a chance to ask a

09:48 question.

09:49 Yes, go ahead, ma'am.

09:50 So you are saying, you know, that you don't trust Kevin McCarthy.

09:51 A number of Democrats right now are saying the same thing, that they don't trust him.

09:56 The one thing we have in common is he's lied to all of us.

10:00 If you were to move forward, if there were to be any kind of agreement, what would that

10:03 look like and what would you need to see from the Speaker of this Congress?

10:07 I think the dice cast based on the motion I just filed.

10:10 I think the time for that discussion would have been over the last several weeks, but

10:14 instead we saw the Speaker continuing to -- I mean, the Speaker did not just fail to remediate

10:19 the breach of the agreement he made with us in January.

10:22 He accelerated the instances of breach.

10:24 Like, after I laid out the breach, he went and violated the 72-hour rule.

10:28 After I laid out the breach, he violated the 100 million no amendment suspension rule.

10:33 So he seems to be reverting to the very unfortunate muscle memory of Washington, D.C., that has

10:40 put our nation atop a $33 trillion debt that has led to $2 trillion annual deficits in

10:45 our near future and the rapid global de-dollarization of the economy.

10:50 You look at the BRICS system, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, they're moving

10:54 away from the dollar.

10:56 And just in August, they added six new countries, including G20 economies in the Western Hemisphere

11:03 and Gulf monarchies.

11:04 Moreover, you saw U.S. news say that the number one economic trend of 2023 is de-dollarization

11:11 globally.

11:13 This worries me.

11:14 You all get all worked up that there's going to be some uncomfortable, chaotic moment,

11:18 that I'll feel pressure from conservatives or Democrats or whomever.

11:22 I feel the judgment of history.

11:24 I feel the weight of that.

11:25 I worry that when the history books are written about this country going down, that my name

11:29 is going to be on the board of directors here.

11:31 And if this country's going down and if we're losing the dollar, I am going down fighting.

11:36 And I don't care if that means fighting Republicans, Democrats, the Uniparty, the leadership, the

11:41 PACs, the lobbyists.

11:42 I've had it.

11:43 I've been here seven years.

11:44 We don't have a fucking budget.

11:46 We haven't had one since the mid-90s.

11:48 I am through with it.

11:50 I apologize for using that word.

11:52 But the only path forward here is to have single subject spending bills that can be

11:57 reviewed, amended, considered.

12:00 And I think that is the responsible way that our legislatures all over this country operate

12:06 for good reason.

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