Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich lashed out at House Republicans who voted Tuesday to unseat former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a historic first.
McCarthy’s speakership was cut short after only nine months when eight Republicans voted with the entirety of the Democratic conference to oust him.
Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida was behind the effort to remove the speaker — who was the first person in history to have the gavel taken from him by a floor vote.
Gaetz was joined in voting to oust McCarthy by fellow Republican Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona; Ken Buck of Colorado; Tim Burchett of Tennessee; Eli Crane of Arizona; Bob Good of Virginia; Nancy Mace of South Carolina; and Matt Rosendale of Montana.
According to Gingrich, each of them should be thrown out of office.
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During a Tuesday evening interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, the former Georgia lawmaker called Tuesday’s historic vote a “sad day.”
He further praised McCarthy for what he said the California Republican was able to accomplish with a slim majority and in such a short period of time.
Gingrich then unleashed a torrent of anger at the eight Republicans he said chose their own egos and Democrats over opposing the Biden administration.
‘VERY SAD DAY’: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich reacts to McCarthy’s ouster on Hannity and slams the ‘egocentric’ Republicans who voted against him. pic.twitter.com/euBwrDracV
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 4, 2023
“Four percent — four percent — decided they were so morally superior, so intellectually pure, so patriotically better that they would side with the Democrats, and that’s what they did in order to defeat the entire Republican House caucus,” Gingrich said.
He continued:
“Ninety-six percent of the Republicans voted for McCarthy; four percent voted against him. From my position as a longtime Republican activist, they’re traitors.
“All eight of them should, in fact, be primaried. They should all be driven out of public life.”
Gingrich compared the votes of the eight Republicans to a football game in which players of one team began playing for the other team in the middle of a close matchup.
“What they did was to go to the other team to cause total chaos,” Gingrich stated.
“We ought to be focusing on Biden, we ought to be focusing on the economy, we ought to be focusing on the border,” Gingrich said. “Instead, you’re going to get a week or 10 days of the media focusing on Republican disarray.”
He concluded, “It’s an astonishingly destructive behavior by a handful of egocentric people who think they’re superior to 96 percent of the conference.”
Do you agree with Gingrich?
Yes: 33% (14 Votes)
No: 67% (28 Votes)
In an op-ed published in The Washington Post Tuesday afternoon, the former speaker called on Gaetz to be expelled from his position.
He even went as far as to compare the Florida Republican to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“He is simply violating the rules in the pursuit of personal attention and fundraising — just like Pelosi said,” Gingrich wrote.
He concluded, “Gaetz’s motion to remove McCarthy should have been swiftly defeated, but it wasn’t; he should still be expelled from the House Republican Conference. House Republicans have far more important things to do than entertain one member’s ego.”
