Interviewed on liberal MSNBC, 41-year-old Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fl.) was asked on “Meet the Press” by Kristen Welker whether bringing down 58-year-old House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was worth it if he gets kicked out of Congress? Welker’s questions were so egregiously biased, designed for sensational headlines, all based on the fake liberal narrative that Gaetzz got McCarthy bounced from his speaker’s job. “If you lose your job will it be worth it,” Welker asked Gaetz. Gaetz replied, “absolutely.” Welker surely knows that Gaetz violated no House rules, only followed the protocol agreed to by McCarthy when he took the House Speaker’s job Jan. 7, 2023. McCarthy agreed, as a condition of employment, that one house member could ask, for whatever reason, for a “motion to vacate,” something MeCarthy agreed to. So why does Welker blame Gaetz?
When you really think of who got rid of McCarthy, it was the Democrat conference which was instructed by 53-year-old House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to vote yea to oust McCarthy. What did Gaetz have to do with the Democrat conference? All Gaetz did within the rules was call for the “motion to vacate.” But with only eight Republicans, including Gaetz, calling to oust McCarthy, he could have easily been saved by Democrats but they were asked by Jeffries to vote as a bloc to oust McCarthy. “Anyone trying to kick me out of Congress because they didn’t like me would have a bone to pick with them,” referring to 70% of Florida GOP voters that sent him to Washington. Gsetz rejected McCarthy’s compromise with Democrats to get a stopgap bill to keep the government from shutting down. Gaetz wanted separated appropriation bills on a wide range of issues.
Gaetz didn’t as Welker says lead a rebellion in the House to get rid of McCarthy. He simply, under House rules, wanted to call for the “motion to vacate.” Gaetz and other Republicans were dumbfounded when the same Democrats that voted with McCarthy and other Republicans for the stopgap bill, didn’t bail McCarthy out. Jeffries told the House Democrat conference to oust Gates, following the advice of 78-year-old Democrat operative, once former President Bill Clinton strategist James Carville. Carville and other Democrat hacks thought it would help voter turn against Republicans in the 2024 election. Yet the false narrative from Democrats is that only Gaetz got rid of McCarthy. “He shouldn’t be in the Republican Party,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), angry over Gaetz’s call for the motion to vacate. Bacon can’t fathom that eight Republicans and the entire Democrat conference voted against McCarthy.
Getting rid of Gaetz because he followed the rules and initiated a motion to vacate doesn’t make any sense when Democrats ultimately got rid of McCarthy. McCarthy was the lesser of all evils when he was voted in as House Speaker on 15 ballots last January. Gaetz and other Freedom Caucus conservatives wanted to let the government shut down to pressure both sides into taking the 2024 budget seriously. It’s no accident that Democrats think it’s OK to spend the country into oblivion with a $33 trillion national debt and $1.6 trillion federal budget deficit. Democrats don’t see the link between excessive government spending and inflation, something now plaguing the country. Federal Reseve Chariman Jerome Powell has hiked the Federal Funds Rate 11 times in the last year trying to stop runaway inflation now punishing U.S. consumers, pushing the economy into recession.
Gaetz wanted Congress to take up separate appropriation bills not pass a stopgap or omnibus bill the lumps all bills in one colossal piece of legislation. Whatever Gaetz reasons to call for the motion to vacate, he was well within House rules and has done nothing wrong. If the House wanted to save McCarthy, Democrats and Republicans could have saved him. Jeffries said it was not up to House Democrats to save McCarthy. But when House Democrats wanted McCarthy to join them and stop the government shutdown, McCarthy joined them. Jeffries played politics doing everything possible to give the GOP a big fat black eye. He succeeded temporarily but by next Wednesday Republican should pick a new Speaker, either Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) or Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), both capable of leading the GOP conference with distinction. Democrats plan could easily backfire.
Democrats want to support Biden’s proxy war with Ukraine. But if Jordan becomes the next House Speaker they’ll have a leader who opposes the Ukraine War. Jordan opposes the war because he sees the U.S.—not Ukraine—as a major U.S. priority. Jordan wants Biden to tell the American public the mission in Ukraine. If Biden admits the mission is regime change in Moscow, it wouldn’t be totally acceptable. Russian President Vladimir Putin has already notified his military that the campaign in Ukraine will be a long one. Given that the U.S. could be embroiled in a proxy war with Russia well into the indefinite future, the lost to the U.S. Treasury could be staggering. When you look at geopolitical events in Israel, it shows that the U.S. should take care of its resources carefully. Today’s spending on Ukraine approaches some $200 billion, far too big a price tag for U.S. national security.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
