Matt Gaetz

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Matty is pushing for a mutiny:

https://x.com/JamaalBowmanNY/status/1701652988085903468?s=20

[GreyhoundFan]

Matty gets upset when he’s asked to provide actual facts. 
https://x.com/acyn/status/1701781345293197349?s=46&t=xnJktaCxqr0vu2aBKCMtWQ

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from Dana Milbank: "Speaker Matt Gaetz has big plans for the House"

Quote

The Constitution designates the speaker as the presiding officer of the House of Representatives and, throughout our history, this has been the case — until now.

The House is currently being run not by Speaker Kevin McCarthy but by backbenchers Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Two days before departing for the August recess, McCarthy (Calif.) told his House Republican caucus that they could not justify launching a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden over unproven (and unfounded) allegations. But on Aug. 31, Greene announced that she would not “vote to fund the government unless we have passed an impeachment inquiry.” Later, Gaetz announced that he would speak on the House floor on Sept. 12, the first day the chamber reconvened after recess, to detail plans to seek McCarthy’s ouster as speaker if he impeded the impeachment of Biden. Former president Donald Trump joined in the impeach-Biden lobbying.

McCarthy, whose main strength as a leader has always been his steadfast devotion to self-preservation, recognized that he was about to get trampled by the impeachment parade. So he stepped out in front of it and pretended to be the drum major. “Today, I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden,” he announced in a hastily arranged statement outside his Capitol office on Tuesday morning — an hour before Gaetz was scheduled to deliver his speech on the floor denouncing McCarthy.

This set off a perverse competition to claim the credit for forcing McCarthy to bow and scrape: Was it Greene, who as a QAnon devotee and new congresswoman in January 2021 filed impeachment articles against Biden on the first full day of his presidency? Or was it Gaetz, subject of a newly revived House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, illegal drug use and corruption?

“When @SpeakerMcCarthy makes his announcement in moments, remember that … I pushed him for weeks,” Gaetz posted on social media.

“Correction my friend,” retorted MTG in her own post. “I introduced articles of impeachment against Joe Biden … on his very first day in office. You wouldn’t cosponsor those and I had to drag you kicking and screaming …”

Gaetz, in a conference call with reporters, raised the ante, demanding the immediate impeachment of Biden — without a pesky inquiry. “I’m for it today. I’m for it tomorrow. I’m for it the next day,” Gaetz said. “Is Kevin McCarthy? And if he isn’t, perhaps my dear friend Ms. Greene could be more persuasive with him.”

McCarthy’s very public surrender was his most pathetic moment to date in a short tenure that has had many. In a flailing attempt to preserve his job as speaker, he set the House on an ineluctable course toward deploying the gravest punishment contemplated under the Constitution against the president. He did so even though, after months of lurid probing of the financial (and sexual) dealings of Biden’s drug-addicted son, House Republicans have produced no evidence of wrongdoing by the president — only wild, unsubstantiated allegations of bribery. And McCarthy did so by unilaterally authorizing the impeachment inquiry even though he has said for years, and as recently as two weeks ago, that such a momentous act could be taken only by a vote of the whole House.

He is trying to save himself at the expense of his Republican colleagues from competitive districts, who will now be forced to defend two ludicrous claims: That the millions of dollars brought in by Biden family members trading on their famous name is a monumental scandal, but the billions of dollars brought in by Trump family members using similar means is totally kosher; and that Biden, the man Republicans have spent years portraying as senile and over-handled, is really a hands-on criminal mastermind.

And McCarthy’s cravenness didn’t even work! His surrender earned him no goodwill whatsoever with the far right. The next day, House Republican leaders brought to the floor the annual defense appropriations bill, which routinely passes year after year because, without it, U.S. troops would not be funded. Yet five minutes before the House gaveled in for its legislative session on Wednesday to conduct its first substantive business since July, the Republican whip’s office announced that the House would instead go back into recess. Right-wingers from the House Freedom Caucus, angry that McCarthy had not (yet) caved to their long and growing list of demands for government-wide spending cuts and policy changes, blocked the House from even debating the defense bill, much less passing it.

Throughout House offices, televisions cut from the floor to a blue screen (a familiar sight for much of this dysfunctional year) announcing: “The House is in recess subject to the call of the chair.” More than four hours later, House GOP leaders still hadn’t come up with the votes to begin debate. They called off the day’s session and shelved the defense bill for the rest of the week.

By Thursday, with the House at a standstill and shutdown fast approaching, McCarthy was reduced to shouting obscenities at his Republican colleagues about a “f---ing motion” to oust him as speaker, or “vacate the chair” in legislative parlance. “You think I’m scared of a motion to vacate? Go f---ing ahead and do it. I’m not scared,” he said at a closed-door meeting.

Asked by reporters whether he had a plan for next week, a defeated McCarthy replied: “I had a plan for this week. It didn’t turn out exactly as I planned.”

Across the rotunda, Republicans in the Senate (which is moving all 12 of its annual appropriations bills with broad bipartisan support) looked with pity on the powerless speaker. McCarthy is “under a lot of pressure over there,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) told reporters. Ya think? With two weeks to go before the government shuts down, the hard right in the House has bottled up 11 of the 12 appropriations bills, as well as all attempts so far at a short-term patch to keep the lights on.

Freedom Caucus hard-liners scoffed at the notion that McCarthy’s impeachment gambit would make them more flexible in their hostage-taking. “Him starting an impeachment inquiry gives him no — zero — cushion, relief, brace, as it applies to spending,” Rep. Bob Good (Va.) told Politico. It was foolish of McCarthy even to try, because these far-right saboteurs will never be appeased. First, they forced him to renege on the spending agreement he reached with Biden in the spring. Then, they sent him a pair of ransom letters over the summer with ever-zanier demands: Deeper cuts to spending! A radical crackdown on asylum seekers! Defund the FBI and the Justice Department! Cut off military aid to Ukraine! Lard up the spending bills with poison-pill, culture-war provocations — and shut down the government if the Senate and the president don’t swallow them.

Even after McCarthy’s cave on impeachment, Gaetz still went to the House floor an hour later to deliver his previously scheduled jeremiad. Before a nearly empty House (one of the few members in attendance was George Santos, in the front row) Gaetz waved his hands theatrically and ticked off still more demands of the speaker: votes on term limits, a balanced-budget amendment, Biden’s immediate impeachment, cutting off funds for special counsel Jack Smith.

“Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role,” Gaetz accused. “The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate total compliance or remove you, pursuant to a motion to vacate the chair.” The terms of this “agreement” McCarthy supposedly violated are shrouded in mystery, because the right-wingers won’t produce its text. Asked about it on his conference call, Gaetz claimed that “Chip Roy holds my copy.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), asked about this later, replied, “Yeah, I’m not going to get into that.”

The terms don’t really matter, because Gaetz and his co-conspirators just keep adding more demands — and insults. “Much of the McCarthy regime has been a failure theater,” Gaetz said, and he threatened to call for a vote to oust McCarthy every day if the speaker doesn’t bend to the far right’s various spending demands. “If we have to begin every single day in Congress with the prayer, the pledge and the motion to vacate, then so be it,” the Florida congressman said on the call.

McCarthy responded with a low blow befitting his lowly stature, alluding to Gaetz’s alleged sexual misconduct with a minor. “Matt is upset about an ethics complaint,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju.

It seems clear that the far right desires a shutdown — or, as Rep. Scott Perry (Pa.), head of the House Freedom Caucus, put it this week, “a pause in government funding.” Another of the firebrands, Rep. Andrew Ogles (Tenn.), told a group of reporters that the “fearmongering” about a shutdown from “woke folks” is misplaced: “A temporary shutdown isn’t going to stop Social Security checks from being delivered. It’s not going to stop veterans benefits from being delivered. And quite frankly, if the government is not open, we’re not wasting taxpayer dollars.”

This would explain the vague and disorganized list of spending demands outlined at a Freedom Caucus news conference this week. Cheered on outside the Capitol by right-wing activists, including the mother of slain Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt, the lawmakers’ grievances were all over the lot.

“A government that tells you you can’t buy the stove you want or drive the car you want is a government of tyranny, and there is no freedom in America,” Perry offered.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), joining his House counterparts, howled about excessive spending yet also incongruously complained that the federal government won’t “give money to my farmers and my ranchers for the hurricane.”

Roy expressed outrage about, in no particular order, “covid tyranny,” “the Wuhan lab leak,” sex trafficking and parents’ rights.

Curiously, one of the Freedom Caucus lawmakers at the event, the usually outspoken Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), left early, without speaking. Shortly after the event, a possible explanation emerged: The Denver Post broke the news that she was escorted out of a performance of the “Beetlejuice” musical in Denver two nights earlier, accused by the venue of vaping, singing, recording and “causing a disturbance.” Police were summoned and reportedly remained “until Boebert and her companion left.”

The wrath of the right is so scattered that it hits even friendly targets. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), a member in good standing of the House Freedom Caucus, admitted with ill-advised candor to MSNBC on Sunday that “the time for impeachment is the time when there’s evidence linking President Biden — if there’s evidence linking President Biden — to a high crime or misdemeanor. That doesn’t exist right now.”

For this bit of truth-telling, Greene, who has called for “a very tedious impeachment inquiry” (one wonders whether Ms. Gazpacho Police knows what “tedious” means) proposed that Buck should be stripped of his committee assignment. “I really don’t see how we can have a member on Judiciary that is flat-out refusing to impeach,” she told CNN. Greene, in a fundraising solicitation trumpeting the impeachment inquiry, is now seeking campaign contributions of up to $6,600 from people who want to be on her “Impeachment Team.”

Buck backpedaled, telling NBC’s Sahil Kapur that it was “a good idea” for McCarthy to launch the impeachment inquiry.

But no one has surrendered his integrity as utterly and as openly as McCarthy has — jettisoning principles he held deeply just 12 days earlier.

At a Wednesday news conference, CNN’s Raju asked McCarthy why he changed his position on requiring a House vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry.

“I didn’t change my position!” McCarthy replied, literally standing in front of a potted plant.

No?

McCarthy on Sept. 24, 2019: “Speaker Pelosi can’t decide on impeachment unilaterally. It requires a full vote of the House of Representatives.”

McCarthy on Sept. 1, 2023 to Breitbart News: “If we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the people’s House and not through a declaration by one person.”

Second place in the lost-integrity contest goes to James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which will lead the impeachment inquiry.

At Wednesday morning’s news conference by House GOP leaders (where Republican conference chair Elise Stefanik had just accused Biden of “the biggest political corruption scandal in our nation’s history”), Comer tried to make his case for impeachment. “This is why Speaker McCarthy launched the impeachment inquiry, and I think the CNN poll two weeks ago that showed 63 percent of Americans believe Joe Biden was involved in his family’s business schemes is reason why we should be investigating this,” he said.

So McCarthy launched the impeachment inquiry because of a poll — a poll no doubt influenced by the constant, unsubstantiated allegations made by the likes of Comer. Comer had previously boasted that because of his investigation, “you look at the polling, and right now Donald Trump is seven points ahead of Joe Biden.”

A month before the 2022 midterms, Comer had said he had no interest in Hunter Biden’s dealings with prostitutes and other aspects of the personal life of the president’s son. “I think that’s very counter to a credible investigation,” he told Time magazine. Right after the election, he said at a news conference that “I don’t want this to be about the human traffic — the prostitute.”

Yet, last week, just four days before McCarthy announced the impeachment inquiry, Comer sent the Justice Department a letter, also signed by Greene, demanding to know more about Hunter Biden’s prostitutes. The committee, they wrote, is investigating whether the DOJ “is upholding the rights of victims who were sexually exploited by Robert Hunter Biden.”

This followed a July hearing of Comer’s committee in which Greene displayed several posters showing Hunter Biden engaging in sex acts with an alleged prostitute.

It is on the basis of this sleaze that Kevin McCarthy just set in motion the impeachment of the president of the United States. Yet the hooligans he was attempting to placate are preparing to shut down the U.S. government anyway in a few weeks — a process they have already begun this week by blocking funds for the troops.

The government closed, while impeachment rolls ahead: what a proud legacy that would be for the Republican House, Mr. Speaker.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Birds of a feather 

 

[Howl]

I think Ari Melber had Gaetz on his show.  I salute Ari for having some very weird, obnoxious people on his show. Randy Credico, Peter Navarro, et al., come to mind.  Randy Credico talking about Roger Stone trying to steal Bianca, Randy's therapy dog, Bianca, is one for the ages. 

We get to see how these people think and operate, but Ari is always on top of controlling the narrative. Ari is also a mensch.  He treats people (like Randy Credico) with dignity; if they're assholes trying to platform their views and spewing the party line, he firmly shuts them down. 

But back to Matt Gaetz.  Always remember, he's not stupid.  Based on watching him on Ari Melber show, he is quick witted and mentally extremely sharp.  The fact that he's an unprincipled slime bag with zero moral compass protected by the political and judicial right-wing machine in Florida makes him a very dangerous human being. 

Because he's shameless, he has no problem endorsing Boebert and Noem.  He's also messaging, "Don't be distracted, keep you eyes on the prize of absolute Republican control. Yes, these people may be flawed, but remember the horror of not supporting them means a Democrat could take their place and what could be worse than that?"

The Republican strategy is to demonize Democrats; for many, there is nothing worse than the (literally) demon-infested Democratic party 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by Howl

[GreyhoundFan]

Matty won't be happy until the government shuts down again. He forgets that most Americans have blamed the Rs for shutdowns.

 

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Is Matty talking about Qevin or himself?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Big trouble.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Matt just doesn’t want the government to function:

 

[Alisamer]

It hadn't occurred to me until reading the last few posts here that what is happening is people who despise the government are being elected to government office, apparently to take it down from the inside. Like, possibly deliberately, though I don't think all the Republicans are in on the plan clearly. 

Like, I thought the election of Gaetz, Boebert, MTG, etc. were just symptoms of the idiocy that got Trump elected. That it was just desperation and the total demonization of democrats, meaning that the people who consider themselves conservative won't vote for anyone without an R by their name, no matter what.

But it seems like this is actually part of the insurrection. The "storm the capitol" part didn't work, but they've managed to get in the political equivalent of suicide bombers here. They aren't even pretending that they are there to serve their constituents or do the job they were elected for... they are there to destroy the government in any way they can, and do as much damage as possible before they succeed. From the inside.

Which frankly is terrifying. It's good that many of them are clueless inept dolts, but they aren't all that way, and that's pretty scary.

[GreyhoundFan]

Fuck you, Matty. I think you shouldn't get any pay or benefits while you shut down the government for your BS performance art.

 

[Audrey2]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Fuck you, Matty. I think you shouldn't get any pay or benefits while you shut down the government for your BS performance art.

 

I would love to go one step further, although it's not possible. I would like Gaetz find each day enough to pay the security and custodial staff at the Capitol building. I'd also like to see Marjorie Taylor green find enough to pay the TSA agents at Dulles airport. It's going to be the government employees who are necessary workers but at the low end of the scale who feel this the most. They're going to be the ones who can't pay their rent or their mortgage. They're the ones who are not going to be able to buy food. They're the ones who must keep working but aren't going to be able to afford to pay for their child care. I'd be happy to make each member of the freedom caucus and those others who are really trying to gum up the works of government to pay for necessary staff so the much lower paid necessary staff don't have to lose out on paychecks.

[GreyhoundFan]

Cassidy Hutchinson was a guest on The Rachel Maddow Show. This is a clip about Matt Gaetz that made me laugh.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

I wish they would expel him. 

 

[onekidanddone]

8 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I wish they would expel him. 

 

Well he isn’t wrong on this one.  

[GreyhoundFan]

Pretty rich coming from Newt. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Just what Florida doesn’t need:

 

[Audrey2]

Sometimes I think Florida elects Matt Gaetz to Congress just so they don't have to have him living there for 2 years at a time.

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

The Washington Post published this op-ed from Newt Gingrich:

"Newt Gingrich: Republicans must expel Matt Gaetz"

Quote

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is an anti-Republican who has become actively destructive to the conservative movement.

Drama has filled the halls of Congress for 234 years. Bringing together a group of 435 strong-willed personalities guarantees conflict, and it has always been a tumultuous body. But some behavior crosses the line — and when it does, there has to be consequences.

Gaetz obviously hates House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — and that’s fine. If Gaetz were simply a loudmouthed junior member who attacked McCarthy every day, that would be fine, too. He would just be isolated with a small group of lawmakers who can’t figure out how to get things done. They’d huddle together seeking warmth and reassurance from their fellow incompetents.

But Gaetz has gone beyond regular drama. He is destroying the House GOP’s ability to govern and draw a sharp contrast with the policy disasters of the Biden administration.

Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), a liberal Democrat with whom I disagree on almost everything, perfectly captured Gaetz’s childish behavior in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. Gaetz “has no sway” or influence in Congress, Pelosi said, “except to get on TV and to raise money on the internet.” Pelosi told Tapper he was “wasting [his] time on that guy.”

This week, McCarthy and House Republicans should be focused on cutting spending in appropriations bills. Republicans should be focused on advancing their impeachment inquiry into President Biden. They should be pursuing and amplifying immigration policy changes to address the wildly out-of-control southern border.

Instead of taking these positive steps — which would help move the conservative agenda forward — Gaetz has been egocentrically going from TV show to TV show and attacking his own party by repeatedly threatening to bring a motion to oust McCarthy as speaker, which he did late Monday.

Furthermore, Gaetz is violating the House Republican Conference rule that states the motion to vacate “should only be available with the agreement of the Republican Conference so as to not allow Democrats to choose the Speaker.” The agreement made when McCarthy became speaker doesn’t supersede the conference rules. Gaetz still needs a majority of the conference.

Gaetz knows he can’t possibly get a majority of the House GOP conference to his side. He is simply violating the rules in the pursuit of personal attention and fundraising — just like Pelosi said.

I served 20 years in the House, including four as speaker. On occasion, I fought against the GOP establishment. I led the fight against President George H.W. Bush’s 1990 tax increase after he had broken his word about “no new taxes.” I felt bound to stay with my commitment to the American voters.

Unlike Gaetz, though, when I rebelled, I represented the majority view of the caucus at the time.

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.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Republicans are sick of Matt Gaetz, and they’re not quiet about it"

Quote

Rep. Matt Gaetz stood in an unfamiliar spot Tuesday as he pressed his case to boot Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the role of House speaker — the Democratic side of the chamber.

By the time Gaetz (R-Fla.) finally made good on his long-standing threats to force a vote to topple McCarthy (R-Calif.), his Republican colleagues were so fed up with him that they wouldn’t let him debate from within their caucus, banishing him to the minority Democratic side of the room.

Gaetz’s successful fight to remove McCarthy from the speakership has cost him in his own conference, lawmakers say. The GOP on Tuesday was considering expelling Gaetz from its caucus. McCarthy, meanwhile, told Republicans he would not seek reelection as speaker after Gaetz pushed him out.

“I’d love to have him out of the conference,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told reporters Tuesday. “ … He shouldn’t be in the Republican Party.”

In a GOP conference that has in recent years devoured its own — ostracizing members who have spoken out against former president Donald Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — so far only Gaetz seems to be at risk of formal dismissal.

Asked whether he was afraid of being exiled, Gaetz responded with the same brashness he brought to the House floor during the debate over McCarthy.

“If they want to expel me, let me know when they have the votes,” he said.

The GOP disdain for Gaetz, aside from the handful of hard-right Republicans who joined his motion to vacate the speakership, was clear all day Tuesday.

“You all know Matt Gaetz,” McCarthy told reporters after he was ousted. “You know it was personal.”

Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) assailed the Floridian on the House floor for soliciting campaign donations on the back of his motion to vacate the speakership.

“It’s what’s disgusting about Washington,” he said.

“That’s not governing,” McCarthy added. “That’s not becoming of a member of Congress. … It was all about his ethics. But that’s all right.”

Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) referred to Gaetz as a “Republican running with scissors.”

And Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), seething on the House steps after the vote, said: “I will always put the best interests of the United States of America and my constituents above my own personal feelings. And clearly Matt Gaetz can’t do that.”

Gaetz was McCarthy’s main obstacle to the speakership in January, leading a band of rebels who refused to vote for the longtime GOP minority leader for the first 13 rounds of roll calls. In the 14th round, Gaetz softened his stance, but only slightly. He voted “present,” not a vote against McCarthy but also not in favor — and not enough to hand him the speaker’s gavel.

McCarthy approached Gaetz on the floor, then walked away, appearing dejected. Meanwhile, Rep. Mike D. Rogers (R-Ala.) stormed over and lunged at Gaetz before being restrained by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.). The Floridian sat unperturbed.

McCarthy was elected speaker after midnight in the 15th round of voting when Gaetz and other right-wing hard-liners voted “present,” lowering the threshold McCarthy needed to win office.

But by then, McCarthy had struck deals with those hard-liners that hemmed him in. The most noteworthy concession: A single member could bring a “motion to vacate the chair,” or call for a vote to remove the speaker.

Gaetz threatened to wield that power for months, then made clear on Sept. 12 that he would seek to depose McCarthy, when he said the speaker was “out of compliance” with the deal he struck in January.

Gaetz demanded McCarthy rectify those supposed breaches by instituting steep budget cuts during the September fight to fund the government and abandoning a spending deal McCarthy had made with President Biden in June. The president and speaker agreed to suspend the debt limit in exchange for limiting growth in federal discretionary spending. Conservatives quickly soured on that arrangement, which drew large numbers of Democratic votes on its passage.

Gaetz threatened to invoke the motion to vacate if McCarthy did not back away from that deal and instead pass 12 appropriations bills with draconian spending cuts. And if McCarthy made an end run around Gaetz and relied on Democratic votes to keep the government open, Gaetz would invoke the motion, too.

Over the weekend, that’s exactly what happened: McCarthy pushed through a deal to extend government funding into November at current spending levels but without billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine that Biden wanted. Again, Democrats backed the measure, which the Senate also adopted just ahead of a deadline for a shutdown.

Gaetz was livid. And his GOP colleagues were furious, too — but with him.

“I think there’s some reason to doubt whether or not Matt Gaetz is serious,” Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) told reporters on Tuesday. He called Gaetz’s crusade a miscalculation that would undercut Republicans’ narrow House majority.

“This was a vote for chaos,” Bacon said. “I think it hurts our country, our Congress. Republicans will be weaker for this come next November. And I thought the behavior of these eight folks [who voted against McCarthy] was shameful.”

After the vote, Gaetz said his party needed time to go through “the grieving process.” First, he said, was denial, as GOP leadership hoped they could pry away votes to save McCarthy’s gavel.

It wasn’t clear that lawmakers were in denial of the outcome, but they did appear to be reeling. “Give me a minute, guys,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) told reporters after the vote as colleagues offered him consolation drinks and cigars back at their offices. “Let me think through some things.”

Then, Gaetz said, would come (more) anger. Gaetz and Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said they drew the ire of colleagues on their way out of the House chamber.

“I got cussed at and sneered at, and I get it,” Burchett said. “I’ve been down this road before. I’ve handled bullies before in my life.”

As the conference went into a closed-door meeting Tuesday to determine the GOP’s next move, Gaetz said, members were “headed toward bargaining.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I like when the rethugs go after each other: