While many Americans were relieved that the “adults in the room” made a deal to keep the U.S. government open — for a month and a half — Republicans on the far right saw the stopgap measure to fund the government as a disaster. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, finding his GOP path toward a resolution blocked, used Democrats to pass the measure — and that hurt the Republican brand in the view of far-right Republicans like Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who has now moved to vacate the speakership.
McCarthy’s keep-it-open deal brought 209 Democrats on board (plus 126 Republicans) and also managed to squelch Ukraine funding, which was part of the right wing’s demand list.
Yet Congressman Gaetz, who had already been calling for McCarthy’s ouster from the speakership, taunted the McCarthy for getting played by President Joe Biden in the deal.
Even worse, from Gaetz’s viewpoint, is that the Speaker’s alleged concessions continue to destroy one of the GOP’s most powerful narratives going into the 2024 election, in which they hope to return former President Donald Trump to the White House.
The GOP’s top tactic for defeating the incumbent has been to characterize Biden as a crook and, failing that, to portray him as too old for the job and past his mental prime — “feeble” in Gaetz’s terminology.
That Biden and the Democrats out-negotiated McCarthy, in Gaetz’s view, wrecks this valuable Republican narrative weapon and endangers Trump’s chances, Gaetz says.
Gaetz: It is going to be difficult for my Republican friends to keep calling President Biden feeble while he continues to take speaker Mccarthy's lunch money in every negotiation. pic.twitter.com/EAGaxvZSM7
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 2, 2023
“It is going to be difficult for my Republican friends to keep calling President Biden feeble while he continues to take Speaker McCarthy’s lunch money in every negotiation,” Gaetz says above, talking about a “secret deal” that finds the Ukraine funding through a backdoor and allegedly gives Biden everything he wants.
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