Fox News Panel Slams Matt Gaetz’s ‘Nihilistic’ Move To Oust McCarthy: ‘Seems Like a Personal Grudge’

As news of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) filing a motion to remove Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as speaker broke, Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked her conservative guests for their reaction. The consensus among guests and host was that the effort is foolhardy.

Gaetz has said McCarthy broke the terms of an agreement the two made back in January, when Gaetz stopped opposing McCarthy’s efforts to become speaker of the House. After 15 ballots, the Florida lawmaker dropped his opposition by voting “Present,” which gave McCarthy a majority of the ballots cast and thus the speakership.

“Newt Gingrich pushed back really hard over the weekend on social media saying this is a self-inflicted wound on the part of the Republican Party,” Ingraham said of the former speaker. “So, what is this gonna ultimately accomplish?”

“I’m not too sure it’s gonna accomplish that much,” said Christopher Bedford of the Common Sense Society. “There’s a lot of real principled opposition to McCarthy… What’s going on between McCarthy and Gaetz at this point seems like a personal grudge.”

Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer was even more blunt.

“I think it’s nihilistic,” he said. “I just don’t know what they seek to accomplish. And whoever it is, is gonna be the next speaker, they’re gonna try to vacate that person. Anybody who has to make any agreement or compromise, they are against. You can’t vote with a five-vote majority and speak like you have a 50-vote majority. Republicans only have five.”

“You have to have more votes,” Ingraham said. “You have to get power back. And until you get the votes, you can’t make a lot of these seminal decisions.”

The last straw for Gaetz appeared to be a last-minute funding bill that averted a government shutdown over the weekend in which Democratic votes were needed to pass the 45-day spending bill. In the meantime, the House will try to pass bills to fund the government over the longer term. In addition to the House, the Senate and White House will need to sign off on them.

The last time a motion to vacate the chair was made was in 1910 when an effort to remove Speaker Joseph Cannon failed.

Watch above via Fox News.