Matt Gaetz: “Our Failed Speaker”
On Tuesday evening, the Senate voted overwhelmingly (77-19) to advance a temporary bipartisan CR. Every Democrat and 28 Republicans voted for it. The 19 Republicans in the Senate’s “Shut It Down” Caucus led by Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Rand Paul voted against it. Russo-Republicans like Rand Paul are incensed because it includes aid to Ukraine. Paul crowed that he will refuse to give his consent for the bill to move along, which in a dysfunctional Senate that should be abolished, means the government will shut down on Saturday night before the bill can be passed on Sunday. Rand Paul— always the asshole.
But, according the the Punchbowl team, even after the Senate passes the CR, “There’s no chance— and we mean zero— that Speaker Kevin McCarthy will bring that bill to the floor in its current form. Maybe he’ll take up a clean CR a week or so into a government shutdown. McCarthy may have the leeway to consider a clean CR after he’s tried to isolate some of the [fascist] hardliners and it’s clear he has no option in order to get federal employees back at work. But there’s no way he can do so now. McCarthy has to show some fight. It’s what a chunk of the House Republican Conference wants. It’s his personal inclination as well.”
Last Saturday, I was at an event with half a dozen members of Congress. They all agreed— as did most of the candidates I’ve been speaking with— that with the exception of the activists— most of their constituents aren’t aware that the Republicans are engineering a government shutdown. Most people seem to be blaming “Congress” rather than either the Republicans or Trump. McCarthy’s trying to shift the blame away from himself, the GOP’s mania for deep social safety net cuts and his party’s inability to resist Trump’s demand for a shutdown to a disagreement over the Mexican border. Asked by Monmouth, who's to blame...
According to McCarthy’s own leadership team, there is skepticism that he can get the House to pass any McCarthy-endorsed stopgap funding bill. The Trump-Gaetz Shut It Down Caucus is “opposed to any kind of CR— even if it is jam-packed with provisions they support. ‘I will not vote for a CR. It doesn’t matter what you attach to it,’ Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT)” told Punchbowl. Gaetz and others on the far right have said the same thing. The media doesn’t seem to want to talk about Trump’s explicit direction to them to shut down the government. What its wrong with the media? Do they just not understand something this simple?
On Tuesday, at the University of Wisconsin, Paul Ryan chalked up the impending shutdown to his party’s extremists “calling hard-right resistance to a spending deal nothing more than nihilism… There's just a small handful of members,’ Ryan said. ‘I think they think they win by losing… We look like fools, we look like we can’t govern.’ He urged GOP primary voters to elect any of the other primary candidates— except ‘that Vivek guy,’ a reference to political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy. Ryan called on candidates to take steps to ensure Trump is not the nominee. ‘Before Super Tuesday, if we got somebody that's showing some momentum ... my hope and prayer is that the rest of the field gets the heck out,’ he said. A move to re-nominate Trump would continue to turn off suburban voters, who Ryan said were set to be even more repulsed by Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection. ‘I think leaders should endeavor to be honest, ethical, moral people who try to set standards for themselves and lead by example for the rest of the country,’ Ryan said. ‘Donald Trump doesn't try to do any of that. He does the opposite, frankly. I just don't think he's fit for the job here.’”
Tuesday evening, on the House floor, Gaetz said that he’s ready to file a motion to vacate the chair: “The one thing I agree with my Democrat colleagues on is that for the last eight months this House has been poorly led. And we own that and we have to do something about it. And you know what? My Democrat colleagues will have an opportunity to do something about that, too. And we will see if they bail out our failed speaker.” You think Gaetz would talk this way-- let along act the way he is-- without permission and even encouragement from Trump?
