The man responsible for the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House of Representatives has no plans right now to pull the same trick with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
In an interview with CNN's Abby Phillip hours after the House of Representatives voted by a margin of 314 to 108 and the Senate passed by a margin of 77 to 18 to keep the government open through March, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said there is take-the-good-with-the-bad stance.
The House Freedom Caucus, of which Gaetz is a vocal member, announced it “strongly opposes” the bill.
During the interview, Gaetz was pressed about whether he and others who sought to remove former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after he worked with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to reach a similar bill would apply the same criteria when it comes to Speaker Johnson.
"Well, it's not exactly the same," Gaetz said. "You see, the Johnson deal claws back $20 billion of the $50 billion inside deals that Kevin McCarthy lied to us about.
That said, Gaetz doesn't necessarily consider Johnson absolved from hashing out a deal with the Dems.
"I wish that Johnson would have gotten us more clawed back from the McCarthy side deals and it certainly was a disappointment that he didn't," he said.
For Gaetz, the suspected back office dealings of McCarthy warranted his unceremonious removal.
Also, the math has changed since McCarthy retired and criminally charged Rep. George Santos (R-NY) was expelled out of office.
"It's hard to judge Johnson by the same standard as McCarthy because he doesn't have the same majority McCarthy had, in part because McCarthy left," said Gaetz.
Phillip interjected: "You kicked McCarthy out of his job. You forgot that part."
But Gaetz said it was that McCarthy couldn't be trusted and with Johnson, the promises are being kept.
"Again, as I said, it wasn't one thing with McCarthy, it was an accumulation of misrepresentations, lies in the sense that we were being sold out time and again in these negotiations," he said. "With Johnson, he has been very clear up front when he has a one-seat majority having to balance the needs of a diverse caucus, trying to get us into a fighting posture. It is my hope, it is my expectation that we get into that fighting posture before taking the third strike of a third continuing resolution in a conversation with the Speaker."
