'I'll be candid': GOP lawmaker reveals what might have happened behind closed doors if House hadn't recessed after McCarthy ouster



Republican Rep. Garret Graves (La.) revealed Wednesday that House Republicans almost fought one another over Rep. Matt Gaetz's campaign to oust Kevin McCarthy from the House speakership.

After eight Republicans joined House Democrats to remove McCarthy, Gaetz criticized House Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R) for sending lawmakers on recess until next week.

"We should be here tomorrow, working to elect a new speaker, getting onto our appropriations bills and engaging in a negotiation with the Senate to get the government funded. But instead these people have got to go home and cry for a week. They've got to go do a week of hand-wringing and bed-wetting over the fact that Kevin McCarthy isn't speaker any more," Gaetz said Tuesday on Newsmax.

Taking days off to cool down and ease tensions is, according to Graves, necessary after what almost went down privately among House Republicans.

"I'll be candid," Graves told CNN anchor Jake Tapper. "If we had stayed together in the meeting last night, I think that you would have seen fists thrown, and I'm not being dramatic when I say that.

"There is a lot of raw emotions right now," he explained. "I think it was best to let folks go back home and decompress a little bit and then come back together."

Tapper pushes back on GOP Rep. who says Dems share blame for ousting McCarthy www.youtube.com

Since McCarthy's ouster, many Republican lawmakers have said that Gaetz should be punished, perhaps even voted out of the House Republican Conference.

Graves did not endorse banishing Gaetz but said there should be "some type of penalty or punishment for what he did."

"Let's be really clear, you had eight Republicans that came together yesterday with 208 Democrats," Graves said.

When lawmakers return for business next week, electing a new speaker will likely be the top agenda item. So far, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan have announced their campaigns for the speakership.

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Kevin McCarthy STUNS press with response to his ouster



House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did what he thought was best in order to avoid a widely feared government shutdown.

He pushed forward a bill that Democrats would support — and his Republican colleagues were not happy. So unhappy that McCarthy is now the first speaker in history to have been voted out of his job.

Eight Republicans joined forces with Democrats in order to oust him.

Dave Rubin believes he’s “taking it like a champ.”

In his first press conference since the ousting, McCarthy told the audience, “Doing the right thing isn’t always easy, but it is necessary. I don’t regret standing up for choosing governing over grievance. It is my responsibility; it is my job.”

“I do not regret negotiating. Our government is designed to find compromise. I don’t regret my efforts to build coalitions and find solutions. I was raised to solve problems, not create them. So, I may have lost the vote today, but as I walk out of this chamber, I feel fortunate to have served the American people,” McCarthy continued.

McCarthy also noted that he would not be running again for speaker, saying, “I’ll have the conference pick somebody else.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz was one Republican who led the charge against McCarthy, calling the debt ceiling deal McCarthy cut with Biden his “original sin.”

While Rubin thinks McCarthy is handling it well, he doesn’t believe Gaetz’s actions were wrong either.

“Gaetz is absolutely doing what he thinks is best,” Rubin comments.

“His integrity is intact.”


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Republicans exact more 'revenge' on Democrats, evict second top Dem from Capitol office: 'Expect more of this'



Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) isn't the only senior Democrat to lose a hideaway office in the United States Capitol.

After House Democrats joined eight Republicans to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as speaker of the House, Republicans evicted Pelosi from her hideaway office in the Capitol. It was one of the first decisions of House Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R).

Republican leadership followed up that move by also evicting Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) from his hideaway office in the Capitol.

"Republicans," according to veteran Capitol Hill reporter Jake Sherman, "are taking revenge" on Democrats for voting to oust McCarthy.

"Expect more of this, GOP sources tell us," Sherman reported.

— (@)

"[W]hether you think it's right or wrong, Republicans are going to exact revenge for a long while over the [motion to vacate] vote. [Y]es, it was an internal party squabble. [B]ut the GOP thinks Dems shouldn't have sided [with] Gaetz," Sherman explained. "[R]emember: the majority controls the Capitol. Rooms, codels, etc."

Hoyer's office confirmed that House Republican leadership asked him to vacate his hideaway office.

Lawmakers not in leadership typically do not have offices in the Capitol. However, Pelosi and Hoyer were allowed to keep one after Democrats lost the House majority in the 2022 midterm elections.

The Washington Post explained:

Both Pelosi and Hoyer still have offices across the street from the Capitol, in one of the complex’s attached buildings. But because of their time serving in House leadership — the two octogenarians led the Democratic Party in the House for two decades — they had been assigned offices in the main Capitol building.

Meanwhile, Republicans are allegedly threatening to abandon the House Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers designed to cultivate bipartisan cooperation.

Republicans on the PSC are angry that Democrats sided with "Gaetz and a single digit number of chaos agents in the Republican Conference," said a letter GOP members of the caucus drafted, Axios reported.

"It is unfortunate, for America and the institution of Congress, that Democrats in PSC chose not to risk the smallest amount of political capital or show the minimal courage necessary to merely vote against the Motion to Vacate. Instead, they voted for the chaos and now hope to benefit politically from it," the letter added.

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GOP congressman reveals the 'disgusting' action Rep. Gaetz took during McCarthy ouster — then he whips out the receipts



Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) unloaded on Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) Tuesday for immediately fundraising off of his campaign to oust now-former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R).

Gaetz claims he initiated a motion to vacate the chair because, in his view, McCarthy made promises to the Republican conference that he failed to keep. In the end, only seven of Gaetz's Republican colleagues agreed with him, but that did not stop him from gloating about the ouster and using it to raise money.

During the chaos on the House floor Tuesday afternoon, Graves singled out Gaetz and spotlighted the Florida congressman's fundraising push.

"I keep wondering what is going on? Are we redefining what 'conservative' is? What's going on in this country today? What's going on in this body?" Graves asked in a floor speech. "We have Freedom Works, Heritage, Chip Roy, and Jim Jordan say something is conservative, and [yet these eight Republicans] say it's not, and they're right?"

"And all of a sudden, my phone keeps sending text messages. Text messages saying, 'Hey, give me money.' Oh, look at that. 'Give me money, I filed a motion to vacate.' Using official actions to raise money," Graves revealed.

"It's disgusting. It's what's disgusting about Washington," he declared.

— (@)

Gaetz responded that he is not bothered by his Republican critics, claiming his decision to oust McCarthy was not self-serving.

"I take no lecture on asking patriotic Americans to weigh in and contribute to this fight from those who would grovel and bend knee for the lobbyists and special interests who own our leadership, who have hollowed out this town and have borrowed against the future of our future generations," Gaetz said.

The irony of Gaetz leading the campaign against McCarthy is that five years ago, Gaetz resisted removing then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R) over concerns that it would fracture the House Republican caucus.

"Here's the problem: If we take Paul Ryan off the field right now, instead of being able to finish strong in 115th Congress, we will shatter into a bunch of factions fighting against each other for power," Gaetz said in 2018. "We’ve got enough of that in Washington already. Paul Ryan can be a caretaker of the speakership. We can have a leadership election. We could go into the midterms strong. And I don't think that pushing him out early if he doesn't want to go is in any way advantageous."

That same lawmaker is now being booed by his own colleagues for doing exactly what he once condemned.

JUST IN: Garrett Graves Calls Out Matt Gaetz For Fundraising Off Of Move To Oust Kevin McCarthy www.youtube.com

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