So Much for Party Unity! Matt Gaetz & Kevin McCarthy Got Into It Again
On day two of the RNC, Gaetz told McCarthy he’d be “booed off the stage” and McCarthy told Gaetz he “probably shouldn’t be on the streets." Messy, messy, messy.
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Another day, another textbook case of men being far too dramatic to hold public office. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reunited during day two of the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, and I regret to inform you all that they did not work it out on the remix.
Lest you need a “Previously on…” because of everything that’s happened since the end of last year: Gaetz and McCarthy have pretty much always hated each other’s guts, with Gaetz at one point alleging that McCarthy was hiring online influencers to trash talk him. By September, Gaetz led the coup that successfully ousted McCarthy as Speaker, paving the way for weeks of chaos as the Republican caucus scrambled to replace him. Throughout that whirlwind process, at least once, Gaetz and McCarthy reportedly almost came to physical blows.
On Tuesday afternoon, despite the convention’s inspiring, Hallmark-esque call for party unity, the two were at each other’s throats once again. Gaetz got things started by heckling McCarthy while he tried to do an interview. “What night are you speaking? Are you speaking tonight?” Gaetz taunted McCarthy while repeatedly tapping him on the shoulder. The joke (?), you see, is that McCarthy is not speaking, but Gaetz is. “Hey, if you took that stage, you would get booed off of it. You would get booed off the stage,” Gaetz continued. The Florida man, who very much lives up to that moniker, eventually fled the scene like a child when someone off-camera told him, “Shut up, Gaetz. Don’t be an asshole.”