The Hill BY MYCHAEL SCHNELL AND EMILY BROOKS
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) got into a testy exchange behind closed doors Thursday, after Gaetz accused McCarthy of being behind a social media campaign targeting the Florida Republican — which the Speaker denied.
The back-and-forth at the House GOP’s conference meeting took place amid heightened tensions between the men, with Gaetz openly threatening to force a vote on ousting McCarthy as Speaker if he does not follow through with a number of demands on spending and legislation.
“I asked McCarthy a direct question: Were you out there paying for people to try to create a false negative sentiment about me online?” Gaetz told The Hill of the exchange. “And his non sequitur retort was that he was giving out two and a half million dollars to other Republicans at breakfast. And I asked him how much of that money he’d gotten from FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried.”
McCarthy, however, denied any involvement in the anti-Gaetz campaign, according to the lawmaker — and his outside legal counsel sent a cease-and-desist to the individual responsible for the solicitations earlier this week. The Speaker told Gaetz that he is busy doing his job and trying to run the conference and essentially said, “I’m not worried about you, Matt,” according to a House Republican…
