A Thursday closed-door meeting of the House GOP conference devolved into a cursing and shouting match as several Republicans excoriated Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for making them the subject of endless jokes because they cannot come to a consensus on replacing the person Gaetz removed as speaker of the House earlier this month.
According to CNN’s Manu Raju, things got ugly and nearly came to blows, Mediaite reports.
“It has devolved into a back-and-forth, tense words being exchanged, swear words being exchanged, including at one point the former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy telling Matt Gaetz, who led the effort to oust him, to sit down.”
Gaetz refused to do as he was told, and that’s when the meeting took a serious turn for the worse, Raju continued.
“Gaetz didn’t, some other members cursed at him. One member, Mike Bost, went after him as well, cussing at him several times, we’re told. Also a number of members called on Jim Jordan, the speaker nominee for the Republican Party, to drop out. That is something that Jordan is refusing to do. Basically, where this stands right now is that Jordan has said that he would support making Patrick McHenry, the interim speaker, giving him more legislative power to move through the legislative process, take up bills that have been essentially paralyzed amid this fighting within the House. But he says he will not drop out of the race to be speaker.”
Other reporters confirmed Raju’s account.
Per a source in the room, McCarthy screamed at Matt Gaetz to sit down when he went to the mics, with the source saying Rep. Bost “almost lunging at him.”
— Juliegrace Brufke (@juliegraceb) October 19, 2023
Even worse for the GOP is that nothing was accomplished, with pro-Jordan supporters in the caucus insisting there could be no middle ground:
Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) told reporters after the meeting, “It’s absurd. It’s the biggest F-you to Republican voters I’ve ever seen.”
Gaetz and the extremist MAGA caucus members in the House are directly responsible for removing McCarthy and making their party look like the Keystone Cops. It’s no wonder so many of their colleagues are furious with them and launching F-bombs in their general direction.
