Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) managed to oust Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as House speaker, and panelists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" suggested he made the move to wriggle out of personal problems.
McCarthy was widely disliked by his fellow Republicans and barely managed to win the speaker's gavel earlier this year, but Gaetz didn't win any friends by introducing a motion to vacate his position that passed with eight GOP votes and the backing of the Democratic caucus.
"You know, Matt Gaetz, Bob Good, they hated McCarthy and didn't want him to be speaker no matter what," said Washington Post reporter Jacqueline Alemany. "We don't quite know. We saw some of it, actually, from Cassidy Hutchinson, in her book."
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Gaetz is facing a House ethics investigation that McCarthy refused to drop, which reportedly triggered some of his animosity.
"That is some of the speculation," Alemany said. "We don't actually know the status of the ethics investigation that's going on in the House right now. It would be in the Ethics Committee, then sent to the House Ethics Committee. Once that report is done, members decide what they're ultimately going to do with that. The House had essentially picked up that investigation once the Department of Justice... declined to prosecute Gaetz for sex trafficking charges. Yeah, Gaetz doesn't have a good reputation here amongst even his own peers. We had a piece on Tuesday that was essentially, you know, why does everybody hate Matt Gaetz? He has not won a lot of friends for his tactics, and for some of his behavior. Remember in 2021, there were reports that -- we reported him showing pictures, inappropriate pictures, and making crude comments on the House floor to his colleagues."
Host Joe Scarborough commented on other reports that Gaetz engaged in inappropriate behavior on the House floor.
"I don't know if it sounded more recent, but [another lawmaker] was saying that [Gaetz] was showing images of him doing things with women on the House floor," Scarborough said. "Crushing up certain pills and sniffing it and on the House floor. Members just, again, they don't like that, consider it inappropriate, by almost every -- across ideology. It unites the parties."
Watch the video below or at this link.
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