Matt Gaetz Says He ‘Ran Out of Stuff to Ask For’ From McCarthy
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Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida says that he nearly ran out of “stuff to ask for” from GOP leader Kevin McCarthy during this week’s negotiations on the speaker of the House election.
McCarthy was elected as House speaker just after midnight Saturday following a nearly unprecedented 15th vote, the most ballots required for a speaker since 1859. Gaetz and fellow GOP holdout Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado voted “present” during the 14th vote on Friday night, leaving the Republican leader just short of the finish line.
On the 15th vote, the remaining holdouts—Representatives Bob Good of Virginia, Matt Rosendale of Montana and, Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona—also changed their votes to “present.” The move allowed McCarthy to win the speakership by lowering the threshold of required votes.
Gaetz, who previously said that he would “never” vote for McCarthy, hinted that extensive concessions from the Republican leader may have shifted his position during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity alongside Boebert on Friday night, just before the House was set to reconvene at 10 p.m.
The Florida congressman compared negotiations with McCarthy to a “prenuptial agreement” during his interview. He said that he was “very optimistic” about the situation, a significant departure from his stance earlier in the week. Gaetz also referred to McCarthy as “speaker-designate.”
“I am excited and encouraged,” Gaetz said. “I am grateful that Speaker-designate McCarthy has been so receptive to each and every change that we have demanded. And Sean, we’re at the stage right now where I’m running out of stuff to ask for.”
“Read the bills, have a balanced budget, have a border plan,” he continued. “Kevin McCarthy is agreeing to all these things … It’s never been about him, it’s been about draining the swamp.”
Gaetz went on to praise himself and other McCarthy critics for “driving a hard bargain” with the Republican leader, telling Hannity that the leader would not have agreed to concessions like spending caps if his bid for speaker had been successful earlier in the week.
On the 12th and 13th votes, McCarthy managed to flip the votes of 15 Republicans who had previously refused to back him for speaker. Republicans appeared confident that McCarthy would find success on the 14th vote.
After the 14th vote failed, the House voted against a motion to adjourn until Monday, which would have kept the chamber in limbo for a second week. What appeared to be quick negotiations secured McCarthy’s long-awaited victory on the 15th vote.
Sarah Binder, political science professor at George Washington University’s Columbian College of Arts and Science, told Newsweek that the “protracted” process had left McCarthy in a difficult position due to “all the policy and procedural concessions” that were “promised to the GOP holdouts to get their votes.”
“This was going to be a rocky Congress for McCarthy, even if he had been elected on the first ballot,” Binder said. “It’s a slim, fractured GOP majority that will have a tough time when ‘must pass’ measures come to the floor.”
In Boebert’s interview with Hannity on Friday, the congresswoman expressed optimism that the extended negotiations with McCarthy had put Republicans in a stronger position to “deliver historic, fundamental changes in D.C.” and “conservative solutions on important issues facing the American people.”
Boebert had sparred with Hannity during a contentious interview earlier in the week. The Fox News host took issue with Boebert suggesting that former President Donald Trump, who backed McCarthy, should have told the GOP that he “doesn’t have the votes” for speaker.
Gaetz did not immediately weigh in when asked for his vote on the 14th ballot Friday night, allowing the rest of the chamber to cast votes before being asked again at the end of the process. Critics accused the congressman of delaying his vote for attention.
“Matt Gaetz skipped his vote presumably so that he can be the decisive vote that saves or sinks McCarthy’s Speaker bid in the fourteenth round,” Democratic Representative Ritchie Torres of New York tweeted just before McCarthy’s bid again failed.
Newsweek has reached out to the offices of Gaetz and McCarthy for comment.
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