Ari Melber Confronts Matt Gaetz, Who Slammed McCarthy for Working With Democrats: But ‘Why Is It Ok When You Do It?’

MSNBC’s Ari Melber confronted Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for condemning the former House speaker for cooperating with Democrats, asking, “Why is ok when you do it?”

Melber played a recording of Gaetz on the House floor saying, “Working with the Democrats is a yellow brick road that’s been paved by Speaker McCarthy.”

“This is the question I’ve been dying to ask you,” Melber said. “I haven’t seen you since this all went down. Look at this chart. Congressman Gaetz, you were in the minority. You partnered with over 200 Democrats to oust Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). So the question to you, and this is not a left or right question as you know, there are conservatives and Republicans who’ve raised this issue with you in this recent time. Why is it bad when Kevin McCarthy partners with Democrats to keep the government open, but it’s ok when you do it to actually shut down, basically a functioning House for a few weeks?”

“We shut down for 22 days,” Gaetz replied. “Keep in mind every year, Congress takes a six-week vacation. So, we took about half the time of the normal vacation, and I actually think it was — ”

“And you could have done it without working with Democrats, right?” Melber interrupted.

“Yeah, and by the way, I work with Democrats regularly, whether it’s on privacy rights, on FISA issues, whether it’s on criminal justice— ”

“But I showed you saying that was a yellow brick road paved by McCarthy. You just said— ”

“Well, that was a tight clip,” Gaetz said as the two spoke over each other.

“Explain to us in logical English why it’s bad when he does it and OK when you do it,” Melber reiterated.

“I had to work with Democrats to remove McCarthy, because he worked with Democrats to violate the agreements he had made with us,” Gaetz said, continuing.

Had McCarthy not worked with Democrats on the debt limit deal in violation of the guardrails we had set up, certainly I wouldn’t have worked with Democrats to remove him. But I think we’re being a bit reductive here. It’s ok to work with Democrats in a divided government. It’s actually necessary and required if you want to do the essential functions of government. What’s not ok is for Kevin McCarthy to blow through the guardrails we set.

For example, we told him that he was authorized to negotiate a debt limit deal that was to a certain date or a certain dollar amount, whichever came first. He then blew through those guardrails to just suspend the debt limit entirely until January of 2025. We’ve already accrued two additional trillion dollars in debt as a consequence of that.

“People can assess that, like I said, for themselves,” Melber said.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.