Nobody likes Representative Matt Gaetz, and he wants everyone to know it!
The Florida Republican took to social media to snag credit for the recent GOP exodus from Congress, bragging about how much his own party hates him.
“I love this @cnn article. The fundamental premise is that I’ve made congress so miserable for so many members that they are leaving. Wonderful!” Gaetz wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, sharing a CNN article that only mentioned him twice.
“We can’t save America with the current Republican team. We have to get tougher and smarter. We need newer, bolder voices in the House,” he continued. “If you want to be a Paul Ryan / Kevin McCarthy Republican—THEY DON’T WORK HERE ANYMORE!”
“The next phase of our plan is to REPLACE the droves of retiring members with America First Patriots,” he added, urging Republican primary voters to “do their part” and send him “more backup.”
So far, 45 representatives in both parties have announced their retirements, with an additional six expected to be replaced before the general election (seven if you include George Santos’s replacement just last week).
That includes several legacy Republican policymakers, including Representatives Kevin McCarthy, Bill Johnson, Ken Buck, and Debbie Lesko, who are hanging up their hats and resigning early in a bid to escape seemingly endless grandstanding, gridlock, and complete dysfunction from House Republicans.
The beef between the Republican establishment and Gaetz hit an apex in October, when the MAGA lawmaker led a coup, dubbed the “Gaetz Eight,” to strip McCarthy of the gavel over a renewed House Ethics Committee probe into Gaetz’s alleged payments to a minor for sex.
“It’s unfortunate because you think of the brain trust you are losing. I blame a lot of the ‘crazy eights’ led by Gaetz. They want to make this place dysfunctional to try to wear people out,” McCarthy told reporters outside the Capitol. “It’s very sad… It makes it more difficult for getting people to run in the current climate.”