Matt Gaetz Blasts Kevin McCarthy, Declares ‘Critical Mass’ In House GOP Won’t Support Him For Speaker

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) made clear on Monday that he does not support Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to become the next speaker of the House and told Charlie Kirk “there is a critical mass of people” in the GOP conference to ensure that doesn’t happen.

“Well, I think that they would be the people that reliably adhere to the promises that they make to their voters. I’m not here to like out or dox anybody. I’ll let people make their own announcements in their own time,” Gaetz told Kirk on his podcast.

“I’m making my announcement, which is that I’m not voting for Kevin McCarthy. I’m not voting for him tomorrow. I’m not voting for him on the floor. And I am certain that there is a critical mass of people who hold my precise view,” Gaetz added.

“And so the sooner we can sort of dispense with the notion that Kevin is going to be speaker, then we can get to the important work of actually looking at who are the people” that could be speaker should the GOP regain the majority.

Gaetz made similar comments earlier in the day on his own podcast, ripping into McCarthy, while also breaking with his MAGA ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) who came out in support of the GOP conference unifying around McCarthy.

“The policies Kevin McCarthy has pushed, they are as unhelpful as they are unserious,” Gaetz said, adding:

His Commitment to America is predicated on the notion of using federal tax dollars to go hire 200,000 more cops. You know what? In my community, we hire our own cops and pay for them out of our own tax funds. And so if in Detroit, they want to go defund the police, I don’t think the Floridians should have to pay for it.

Apparently, Kevin Mccarthy does. He also thinks we should have the congress rate your local D.A. Guess what? In Florida, we don’t need anyone in congress rating our local D.A.s because when we have local da’s who don’t follow the law, our governor, Ron Desantis, removes them, as he did recently with a central Florida D.A. who just said he wasn’t going to enforce the law out of wokeism.

“So it doesn’t matter to McCarthy that these ideas offend federalism and belie common sense. They did well in a poll-tested survey. So they must now be doctrine, our commitment. Weren’t the pollsters wrong in this last election anyway?” Gaetz added, concluding:

I have spoken with many Republicans in Congress and many who will join our ranks soon. None are actually inspired by Kevin McCarthy, though many feel financially beholden to him because he is the LeBron James of special interest fundraising in this last cycle. Kevin McCarthy, his team, they raised half a billion dollars in campaign money. That buys a lot of friends. Or at a minimum, rents them.

Watch the full clip above

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