Matt Gaetz Says Majority Of House Republicans Do Not Support More Ukraine Funding

Forbes Breaking News

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) speaks to Republicans after Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) emerged the Republican choice for next Speaker.

Transcript

00:00 What did you think of the picks that they were making?

00:04 I thought both of them did a really good job.

00:06 I think we saw vision and a real sense of purpose from both Mr. Scalise and Mr. Jordan.

00:14 But you haven't made a dent.

00:15 What are you weighing?

00:16 What are you torn about?

00:17 I want to make sure that we've got a real plan to put downward pressure on spending.

00:21 That's what's brought us to this point and I really want to see that we're on a path

00:27 to better fiscal policy.

00:31 What did you hear in there from some of the members who they've been talking about wanting

00:35 some sort of retaliation against yourself and the others who voted against McCarthy?

00:39 Was there discussion of that in that meeting?

00:41 I didn't pay much attention to that.

00:43 Did you ask any questions inside the room?

00:45 I did.

00:46 What did you ask about?

00:47 I don't believe I said.

00:48 What was that?

00:49 I don't believe I said.

00:50 Would you mind talking about what you asked?

00:51 Oh yeah, I'll probably leave that for in there.

00:52 Congressman, do you like Jordan's proposal for a long-term CR which would trigger the

00:59 1% cut and put pressure on Congress, especially the appropriators, to come to the table and

01:06 do their work better?

01:07 So it's all about what gets us to single-subject spending bills.

01:10 That's what I'm for.

01:12 I don't believe we should govern by continuing resolution and the history that we've seen

01:16 is that continuing resolutions often beget other continuing resolutions.

01:21 What Mr. Jordan has proposed, he believes, will get us to those single-subject spending

01:26 bills.

01:27 I think Jim Jordan wants to govern by single-subject spending bills.

01:30 I don't believe he wants to govern by continuing resolution.

01:35 But how that will fit together tactically will weigh heavily on my decision.

01:40 What did Leader Scalise say about that, though, approaching the November 17th?

01:44 Yeah, I heard Leader Scalise really talk about the need to put pressure on the Senate to

01:48 take up our bills.

01:50 Steve Scalise has encyclopedic knowledge of what is in the legislation we've passed to

01:57 fund more than 70% of the government.

02:00 He laid out, both in this forum and in a meeting earlier today with the Florida delegation,

02:06 how he would put pressure on the Senate to take up those bills.

02:09 Specifically, Mr. Scalise said that he'd put pressure on them to take up our Department

02:14 of State and Foreign Operations bill because that's where we've got a lot of money for

02:17 the Iron Dome.

02:19 We think that the Senate should be financially supporting that Iron Dome, and the best way

02:24 to do that is to take up our State and Foreign Ops bill.

02:27 You're open to a clean CR as proposed by Jim Jordan after kicking out Kevin McCarthy for

02:33 such a deal, the same thing?

02:34 No, I didn't say that.

02:35 I said I'm against governing by CR.

02:37 I believe that Jim Jordan wants to put as much pressure on the Senate as possible to

02:42 get them to act on our single-subject bills.

02:44 Didn't McCarthy say the same thing?

02:47 No.

02:48 I don't believe that Kevin McCarthy ever wanted to do single-subject spending bills, and the

02:52 best evidence I have for that is that we went on a six-week vacation without doing them.

02:57 If Kevin McCarthy was serious about doing the single-subject spending bills, we would

03:01 not have taken an August recess.

03:03 Here we've got a different shot clock because we have tens of days left before the government

03:08 runs out of money, so I don't know that you can apply the McCarthy analysis to either

03:12 Scalise or Jordan.

03:14 I don't want to govern by continuing resolution for a day, and I think that we've got other

03:19 ways to put pressure on the Senate.

03:21 Congressman, you've committed to - I'm sorry, you've asked some questions.

03:24 Congressman Gates, today I know you were at the Florida delegation meeting.

03:27 There were seven members who did not attend today's meeting, I heard.

03:30 What are your thoughts on that?

03:34 I enjoyed the discussion with Leader Scalise and with Chairman Jordan.

03:39 They answered questions that were really keen to the minds of Floridians about offshore

03:44 oil drilling, about immigration, about our agriculture policies, and about our unique

03:51 Medicare and Medicaid populations in Florida.

03:54 That's really what that discussion centered around.

03:55 So back on a CR, so say we do have Speaker Scalise or Speaker Jordan, and you say you

03:59 don't want to govern by CR and the motion to vacate the metro to start one lawmaker.

04:03 If they do put forward a clean CR, are you open to filing another motion to vacate?

04:07 Sounds like I don't want to govern by continuing resolution, I don't want to govern by motion

04:11 to vacate.

04:12 There was not one reason why Kevin McCarthy faced a motion to vacate.

04:16 There was a general loss of trust because there were repeated instances of breach of

04:21 the agreement that McCarthy had made in January.

04:24 So I think you mischaracterized sort of the basis for the McCarthy removal.

04:29 It was considerably broader than you would characterize it.

04:33 George Santos, tonight.

04:36 You've committed to supporting either Scalise or Jordan, whichever one gets the majority

04:39 support of the conference.

04:41 Did those two commit to doing the same in the meeting today?

04:44 I don't recall that having come up.

04:47 George Santos tonight got hit with another indictment, 23 total charges.

04:51 Now do you think he should resign?

04:53 I haven't had a chance to review the indictment.

04:55 We were locked away from our phones for several hours, so it'll be something I'm sure we all

04:59 take a look at.

05:00 Apologies if you've already waited on this, but the rules changed to increase the threshold

05:03 to send the nominee to the floor at a 2-17.

05:06 Where do you stand on that?

05:07 I don't think it's really relevant.

05:08 I know a lot of people in this building are pretty focused on that right now.

05:12 I think that would be a lot more dispositive on the outcome if you had like a five or seven

05:19 person race.

05:20 In a world in which only two people are running for speaker, it's going to be pretty clear

05:23 who has the most support.

05:25 And once it's clear who of the two has the most support, I think there's going to be,

05:30 you know, a tremendous amount of pressure to coalesce around that candidate.

05:33 Congressman, in the past you've been opposed to Ukraine funding.

05:34 I understand that eight of them ruled out funding for Ukraine.

05:35 What was your sense of their answers?

05:36 Do you think that this House will ultimately fund Ukraine given that the majority of the

05:37 House supported it, even though the last vote was a minority of Republicans?

05:53 Yeah, a majority of the majority does not support additional financial assistance to

05:58 Ukraine.

05:59 The last time we took a clean vote on Ukraine funding, there were 101 Republicans who voted

06:05 yes, there were 117 Republicans who voted no.

06:08 So the only way anyone, a speaker, would be able to continue funding Ukraine is if they

06:14 wanted to roll a majority of the majority.

06:17 Both of them said they did not want to do that.

06:20 So I think that, you know, the Congress has been the lagging indicator on this issue.

06:26 I think our voters have been well out in front of us when it comes to the viewpoints on Ukraine.

06:33 And I don't imagine that either of these folks are going to be, you know, wrapping themselves

06:37 in the Ukrainian flag in the same manner in which the prior speaker did.

06:42 Great, thanks.

06:43 Thanks for your time.

06:44 Do you think we'll have a speaker tomorrow?

06:45 I think so.

06:46 Really?

06:47 You really think we'll have a speaker tomorrow?

06:48 I do.

06:49 I think we will.

06:50 Is there anything that may have made you more or less confident?

Category

Transcript

Recommended