Kevin McCarthy told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo that thorn in his side Matt Gaetz has been working with Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar to get him removed as House Speaker. We all know McCarthy’s right flank has been using threatening his speakership for months on end every time they don’t get their way on something, but now, according to McCarthy, it’s the evil Democrats’ fault as well.
Bartiromo asked McCarthy about this tweet from Gaetz, and whether we might again be talking about a motion to vacate.
Here’s McCarthy’s response accusing Gaetz of colluding with Democrats to get him ousted as Speaker.
MCCARTHY: Well, it could, and that would be… if you did a motion to vacate, you would have to… a handful of Republicans work with Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Ilhan Omar to remove the Speaker, and it would be exactly what the president wants because it would shut down… how would we… you know how much we went through in January. How would we ever select the Speaker?
I would stay and we’d go through it, is so there would be no investigation. But, it’s not something that I lay out there that Matt’s mad about an ethics complaint. It’s an ethics complaint that happened in the last Congress that a Matt went to other members saying I’m going to try to influence Kevin to get involved in an ethics complaint. I can’t do it. It’s illegal, and it’s not something I will be a part of.
BARTIROMO: It’s extraordinary to me that in the face of all that you and your colleagues have been able to uncover, you’re, once again, getting these threats from Matt Gaetz and a handle of others?
MCCARTHY: These are individuals that they have a right to do what they want, but I am only going to focus on the American public. Look, I showed in January I will never give up. We have made great progress here in changing this Capitol, and when you change Washington, you get enemies. I got Adam Schiff, I got Eric Swalwell upset because I kicked them off the Intel committee. You’ve got Matt Gaetz working with Swalwell to try to throw me out, that’s all well and good, but I’m not going to be deterred from that.
Back in January, Bartiromo appeared stunned at the changes to the House rules that would allow any single member to bring a motion to vacate the chair. Now she appears stunned that a bunch of the hostage takers are actually using the leverage they were given.