Chip Roy Clarifies Remarks About Speakership Drama, Says He Wasn’t Lashing Out at Matt Gaetz
This article has been updated to include Rep. Roy’s remarks in a subsequent radio interview.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) appeared to issue a rebuke and a challenge to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) amid the fight over whether to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
The House ultimately voted to remove McCarthy as speaker on Tuesday by a vote of 216 to 210.
Though Roy did not mention the Florida lawmaker by name, in the moment he seemed to be talking about Gaetz and his fellow anti-McCarthy Republican members.
“Some of our brothers and sisters – particularly in the, you know, MAGA camp, I think – particularly enjoy the circular firing squad,” Roy told Steve Deace of The Blaze on Tuesday. “You wanna come out me and call me a RINO? You can kiss my ass. Look, I’ve spent a lifetime fighting for limited government conservatism. I have laid it all on the line. I have not seen my family for two days in the last 30 days. You go around talking your big game and you thumping your chest on Twitter? Yeah. Come to my office, come have a debate, mother.”
Roy then invoked the invasion of Normandy:
“I’m not gonna go to a nunnery, because goddammit, there were people who are buried over in Normandy who deserve us to stand up for what they fought for!” he continued. “So that’s what I’m gonna do. And all of you fuckers out there who are out there saying what you’re saying out on social media, you stick it! I’m gonna go down to the floor and do my job and I’m gonna stand up for the people who fought for this country.”
Roy then added a caveat by saying he respects Gaetz, but finds his approach ill-advised.
“Like, I respect what Gaetz and my four, five, six brothers are doing right now because they want to change things,” he added. “I respect friends of mine who went to the mic, who are your heroes out there, ladies and gentlemen, who are taking a different position because we’re trying to figure out how to navigate through a world in which Democrats control the Senate, the Republican conference in the Senate is garbage, the House Republican Conference has a variety of views from all over the country with 221. But if people wanna play this out in realtime and deal with this every single minute and every single day on social media, don’t think that that’s somehow going to change the game, because what we gotta do is we have to actually define the fight.”
Speaking with Dana Loesch on her radio show on Wednesday, Roy clarified his comments.
“My reaction there wasn’t really to Matt,” the lawmaker said. “It wasn’t to any of my friends who had a good faith belief that we weren’t getting the job done through the speaker, and they called the question. So, now we gotta go choose another speaker. I didn’t agree with the play call, but I don’t fault them for it.”
Roy added, “Look, I should not have used the language that I used–”
“Oh, no, no,” Loesch interjected. “I’m not gonna have you come and apologize and do all that stuff, Congressman. You know what? You were, you were mad on behalf of the American people. And what you were expressing is what– is the frustration of people all over this country because, you know, at the end of the day, whoever the speaker is, isn’t gonna change inflation. It’s not gonna change what’s happening at the border.”
The congressman said though he does not apologize for his passion, “I do apologize for the language.”
McCarthy was ousted after Gaetz made a motion to vacate the chair after the latter claimed McCarthy had breached multiple aspects of a deal the two reached in January when Gaetz withdrew his opposition to McCarthy’s speakership bid.
Watch above via The Blaze.
