Matt Gaetz accuses McCarthy of making a deceitful side deal with Democrats.
Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz Accuses Speaker McCarthy of Deceitful Side Deal with Democrats
Republican bomb-thrower Rep. Matt Gaetz has made no secret of his battles with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The Florida congressman spent Sunday morning telling national television talk show audiences he plans to try to remove McCarthy from the speaker post this week.
And if a charge he launched Saturday night has any truth to it, he’s got more ammunition than ever.
Just after 8 p.m. Saturday, Gaetz picked up on a statement from House Democrats declaring that when the House returns to business, they expect McCarthy to “advance a bill to the House Floor for an up-or-down vote” on funding to support Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion.
Funding for Ukraine was not part of the stopgap spending bill passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Joe Biden late Saturday.
To Gaetz, the statement was proof that McCarthy had betrayed his own party, which has been leery of giving a blank check to Ukraine.
Wow.@SpeakerMcCarthy made a side Ukraine deal with Democrats and didn’t tell House Republicans until after his Continuing Resolution passed.
More deceit. https://t.co/LC91laLyTp
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) October 1, 2023
Backing up Gaetz’s suspicion, for what it’s worth, Biden on Sunday also suggested a deal had been cut, according to Reuters.
Asked at a news conference if he trusted McCarthy “in future deals,” according to Reuters, Biden responded, “We just made one about Ukraine, so we’ll find out.”
So, assuming Biden was a shade more compos mentis than his usual Thorazine Shuffle self, that sounds like there could be something to Gaetz’s charge.
If there is, or if enough Republicans believe there is, that is going to make for a long week as McCarthy tries to hold onto his job.
Should McCarthy be replaced as speaker?
- Yes
- No
There are plenty of conservatives and Republicans who think — with good reason — that supporting Ukraine against the Russian war machine in 2023 is the equivalent of supporting Winston Churchill’s Great Britain against Nazi Germany in 1940.
Not only is it a moral obligation, to support a beleaguered people against the evil of military aggression, it’s a strategic one, to contain an ambitious dictatorship that presents its own danger to the United States.
There are likewise plenty of conservatives and Republicans who think — with good reason — that Ukraine is a cesspool of corruption, that its government is not to be trusted with the vast American aid that has already gone to Kyiv.
There are also many who think both conditions are true — and that Democrats are cynically using the Ukraine war to set themselves up as defenders of freedom abroad while their programs are aimed at curtailing American freedoms at home (while opening the country up to its own invasion from the southern border).
All of those are defensible positions — particularly the third one.
It’s true that the Russian aggression Joe Biden invited is a special horror in the world, and natural American distaste for tyranny and sympathy for a courageous underdog make the plight of Ukrainians irresistible.
But the Democratic Party’s domestic politics — especially since the 2016 election — have poisoned the well of bipartisanship.
Abroad, the president’s shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan humiliated the United States on the world stage, but his party members backed him to a man and woman. On Ukraine, Democrats have made the country’s security a political football for years — even using it as the setting for their ludicrously lame attempt to impeach then-President Donald Trump in 2019-20.
Conservatives are supposed to believe them now?
Add to that the peculiarities of Biden himself — a man inextricably linked to potential corruption in Ukraine by not only his son but his own boastful words — and there’s a witches’ brew of bad faith big enough to drown even the most idealistic of American support for Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government.
And now this?
A secret McCarthy deal with Democrats over aid to Ukraine would be a good deal worse than simple disagreements over the arc of entitlement spending, say. It would be a breach of trust with his own party conference — and its voters — that the speaker would have a real problem justifying.
If it’s true, it could well send him back into the Republican ranks. If that happens, it would be a demotion that would be well-deserved not so much for deceiving his own supporters but for being dumb enough to deceive them with a political party as dishonest as the contemporary Democratic leadership, starting with the man in the Oval Office.
The next week is going to be interesting for a lot more people than Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy.
The post Matt Gaetz Rages, Says McCarthy Cut Deceitful Side Deal with Democrats appeared first on The Western Journal.
How has President Biden’s statement further added credibility to Gaetz’s accusation?
, it could spell trouble for McCarthy’s leadership position in the House. Gaetz, who has been a vocal critic of McCarthy and the Republican establishment, has made it his mission to hold the party accountable and push for conservative values.
The accusation made by Gaetz stems from House Democrats’ statement regarding funding for Ukraine. They claimed that McCarthy is expected to advance a bill for an up-or-down vote on the matter. This statement raises eyebrows because funding for Ukraine was not included in the side deal with Democrats.”>recent stopgap spending bill passed by Congress. Gaetz sees this as a betrayal of the Republican party, which has been cautious about giving Ukraine a blank check.
Gaetz took to Twitter to express his outrage, accusing McCarthy of making a side deal with Democrats and keeping it a secret from House Republicans until after the Continuing Resolution passed. He called it “more deceit” and shared a link to his tweet.
Surprisingly, President Biden also suggested that a deal had been made regarding Ukraine, adding more credibility to Gaetz’s accusation. During a news conference, Biden was asked if he trusted McCarthy in future deals, to which he responded, “We just made one about Ukraine, so we’ll find out.” This indicates that there might indeed be some truth to Gaetz’s claim.
If Gaetz’s accusation holds weight and enough Republicans believe it, it could jeopardize McCarthy’s position as House Speaker. Gaetz has already voiced his intention to try and remove McCarthy from his post, and this recent development could further rally support behind him.
Overall, this accusation by Gaetz against McCarthy adds fuel to the fire in the ongoing battle within the Republican party. It highlights the deep divisions between the establishment and conservative members of the party, with Gaetz leading the charge for change. Whether or not there is enough evidence to substantiate Gaetz’s claims remains to be seen, but it is clear that the tensions within the party are only growing stronger.
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