Republican Rep. Nancy Mace (S.C.) called fellow GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz a “fraud” for fundraising off his efforts to block House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA.) attempts to claim Speaker’s gavel.
On Sunday (January 8), while speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Mace told host Margaret Brennan that Gaetz “is a fraud.”
She explained that she came to that conclusion because “every time he voted against Kevin McCarthy… he sent out a fundraising email.”
She added that the difficulty the GOP experienced electing a Speaker was the result of “those kinds of political actions.”
Gaetz was part of a group of 20 House Republicans who refused to support McCarthy’s bid for Speaker.
Most of the holdouts changed their vote by the 12th Speaker ballot, but Gaetz and a handful of the initial 20 didn’t relent, even as McCarthy made numerous concessions.
Gaetz was also the reason McCarthy’s bid for Speaker went into a fifteenth ballot in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Gaetz, along with five other “Never Kevin” Republicans, voted “present,” reducing the threshold of votes needed to become Speaker and handing McCarthy the win on the fifteenth ballot.
Gaetz expressed having “no regrets” for casting his vote against McCarthy in one fundraising email.
Emails like that are what fueled Mace’s sharp criticism of Gaetz on Sunday.
The South Carolina Republican mentioned having “severe heartburn” because of the lack of transparency around McCarthy’s concessions to finally secure the Speakership.
While relaying that she didn’t know what was or wasn’t offered, Mace asserted she didn’t “support that kind of behavior.”
