Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is not going out quietly.
McCarthy left Congress for good on Friday, and it appears he is now trying to burn down the House he just left behind.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is the reason that McCarthy is no longer Speaker and why he is leaving Congress.
After saying that Trump should not exact revenge if he returns to the White House, McCarthy quickly switched gears and talked about getting revenge against Gaetz, even suggesting at one point that Gaetz should be expelled from Congress. After officially stepping down on Friday, he stated:
"Gaetz is never a serious person. I mean, when you think about what has transpired, and you talk about someone being selfish, this is all about an ethics complaint that he had a Congress before, that he looked at just himself, that he doesn't want it to come forward for America to know."
McCarthy went on to say that, in his eyes, what Gaetz did was far more serious than Rep. Santos (R-N.Y.), which is ludicrous. But speaking of Santos…
McCarthy was very open about the fact that he would not have expelled Santos from the Caucus, stating:
"I would have leaned to some other punishment for him."
McCarthy also threw Speaker Johnson (R-KY) under the bus a bit because he seemed upset that Johnson never called him for advice after he offered it to him.
McCarthy has been out for revenge since Gaetz made the motion to vacate, so his attitude toward Gaetz is not surprising, but he continues to insist that once the Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz is completed, Gaetz will be gone.
In terms of Santos, I think McCarthy is dead wrong here. Santos misled voters on his resume and did not deserve to hold that seat, so saying that he needed to have his day in court before expelling him or giving him a lesser penalty is just nonsensical.
Over and above the 23 federal charges that Santos faces, the fact his entire resume was fabricated should have been more than enough for McCarthy to make a move to remove Santos from his seat, but he chose to let him stay.
It remains shocking to me that anyone in the Caucus would support Santos, let alone the most powerful person in the House. He was an embarrassment to the party, and the proper thing to do was to remove him.
