‘Oh damn!’: Kevin McCarthy joins BRAWL with Matt Gaetz over claims the speaker is paying influencers to denigrate him as shutdown chaos reaches new levels
- Gaetz continues to threaten to try to unseat McCarthy as the leadership struggles to find a way to fund the government for the 2024 fiscal year
- Gaetz accused McCarthy of sending his allies to pay influencers to post negative content about him
- “I’m not worried about you, Matt,” McCarthy told him, a source in the room said
With less than three days until the government shutdown, tensions are rising within House Republicans.
Rep. Matt Gaetz was heckled by his colleagues when he criticized Speaker Kevin McCarthy during an all-Republican meeting Thursday morning.
The Florida Republican continues to threaten to try to unseat McCarthy as leadership struggles to find a way to fund the government for the 2024 fiscal year.
Gaetz accused McCarthy of sending his Allies to pay influencers Posting negative content about him.
“I’m not worried about you, Matt,” McCarthy told him, a source in the room said.
Rep. Matt Gaetz was heckled by his colleagues when he criticized Speaker Kevin McCarthy during an all-Republican meeting Thursday morning
McCarthy told Gaetz that his legal team had sent a cease-and-desist letter to those who offered money in exchange for negative content about Gaetz and asked them to stop claiming they were doing so on behalf of the speaker.
McCarthy later pledged a $5 million donation to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
“How much of that comes from FTX or Sam Bankman-Fried,” Gaetz then noted.
“Oh, f*** off,” one member shot back, the source confirmed to . Punchbowl named the member Rep. French Hill, R-Ark.
“Scumbag,” said another member.
Essentially, the only way to prevent a government shutdown is to submit a bipartisan continuing resolution (CR) or spending stopgap bill to the House and Senate, respectively, to buy more time to prevent a shutdown.
Gaetz said he would immediately file a motion to resign or force a vote to oust McCarthy as speaker if he worked with Democrats to push a stopgap bill through Congress.
And as the Senate advances its own bipartisan CR, McCarthy is still pushing for a CR with conservative concessions. He calls for a CR with border restrictions and no Ukraine money, in addition to drastic spending cuts that are sure to turn off Democrats.
At the same time, the House of Representatives has only passed one of the twelve budget bills requested by its members. In recent years, Congress has passed an overarching omnibus bill that sets funding levels for each government agency in a single vote.
But when Republicans entered the House this year, they promised to instead pass 12 single-issue spending bills. Two days before the deadline, the House of Representatives passed one budget bill and votes on four others are scheduled for Thursday evening – and it is unclear whether they have any chance of passage.