Kevin McCarthy ripped into the Republicans who voted to dethrone him from the speaker’s chair Tuesday in a defiant message to members of his own party.
Kevin McCarthy ripped into the Republicans who voted to dethrone him from the speaker’s chair Tuesday in a defiant message to members of his own party.
“They’re not conservatives and they don’t get to call themselves conservatives,” McCarthy said of the eight GOP members who, along with Democrats, backed an effort not seen in more than 100 years to oust him from the speakership.
McCarthy (R-Calif.) pulled no punches when asked about Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the mastermind of his historic removal as speaker of the House of Representatives.
“You all know Matt Gaetz,” he told reporters during his first remarks following his ouster. “You know it was personal. It had nothing to do with spending.”
McCarthy charged that his Florida counterpart’s actions were “not becoming of a member of Congress,” and that Gaetz’s long expected motion to strip him of his gavel was fueled entirely by a House Ethics Committee investigation weighing over the Sunshine State lawmaker and his his refusal to intervene in the matter – a claim Gaetz denies.
“Regardless of what you think, I’ve seen the texts. It was all about his Ethics, but that’s alright,” McCarthy said.
The former speaker, whose 269-day tenure leading the lower chamber is the shortest in nearly 150 years, also accused Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.
