A.G. Gancarski
Intrigue continues in the House Republican Caucus, with U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz traveling west with a call for removing the third-ranking member.
In an appearance in Wyoming Thursday, Gaetz addressed a crowd on the steps of that state’s Capitol, drawing applause for a series of pointed one-liners directed at Rep. Liz Cheney, who has become especially vulnerable since voting for the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
“We are in a battle for the soul of the Republican Party,” the Panhandle Congressman said. “And I intend to win it.”
Gaetz blasted Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, in remarks tailored to his “America First” base, with repeated salvos aimed at political action committees, foreign wars, and the Beltway culture writ large.
“We see the fakes and the phonies more clearly than ever before,” Gaetz said to cheers.
If Gaetz had prepared remarks, he didn’t seem to need them. He brought a Don Rickles sense of timing to what, for him, is a very serious debate about the GOP’s future.
The Congressman pounded the practice of “exporting America’s greatest patriots to die in distant foreign lands,” objecting to decades of military expeditions around the globe.
“A nation who sends its best to go fight in the worst places in the world should not send its worst to Congress,” Gaetz said. “America is not some vaccine to global tyranny that we have to administer through decades of military occupations in foreign lands.”
Gaetz called Cheney a “master of the ways of the Beltway in ways I’ll never be.”
“Liz Cheney is a lot like Congress — deeply unpopular and owned by special interests,” Gaetz said. “She’s taken more money from PACs than people. She works for them, not you.”
Gaetz decided to forsake money from political action committees early in 2020.
Another event highlight was a special phone call from Donald Trump Jr., who added his own zingers for Cheney. He urged Wyoming Republicans to unite around one challenger to the state’s only member of Congress.
The division has been one of the most high-profile cases of fissures within the House Republican caucus since Trump’s defeat and second impeachment. Cheney cast one of 10 Republican votes in favor of impeaching Trump after riots that followed failed objections to certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral college victory.
Gaetz, in contrast, remains one of Trump’s most ardent defenders, and has continued on the House floor to assert the election was stolen from Trump. During the House impeachment after the riots, Gaetz contended “President Trump may be most likely to be impeached when he is correct.”
But the friction between Gaetz and Cheney goes back further, to when the high-ranking Republican supported a primary challenger to Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie. That move, Gaetz said since, indicated to him it was fine to back primary challengers to House incumbents, as he plans to do against Cheney,
11 comments
Frankie M.
January 28, 2021 at 4:38 pm
Gaetz looks out of place up there in Wyoming kinda like the Easter Bunny on Xmas day.
Ocean Joe
January 28, 2021 at 6:29 pm
If you’re concerned about China displacing American power and influence in the world there is no shorter path than isolationism.
If China succeeds in replacing the dollar as the global currency, we must remember to thank Matt for doing his part.
andrew sanders
January 29, 2021 at 12:54 pm
Mr DUI strikes again!
earl hickey
January 29, 2021 at 3:18 pm
I wish Liz Cheny would go hunting with her father. /s
Ron Ogden
January 29, 2021 at 8:21 pm
Gaetz: succinct, pointed, accurate. This is coming down to a fight between the neo-cons a la Bush and his father (the great New World Order man) and Chene on the one side and the traditional, home-focused, midwestern Republicans of Robert Taft on the other. We bribe the enemy (Obama), we spend our children’s blood in endless wars (Bush and Bush again), we make the mistake of giving Red China an inch (Nixon); the only one in my lifetime who was willing to beat the enemy on his own terms was Reagan (God Bless him). Trump was beginning to do so. This will determine the future of America. Biden already is irrelevant–but I fear he will start another war to prove his importance.
Sonja Fitch
January 30, 2021 at 3:54 am
Those cowboys are looking at Gaetz like waaaaattttthhhhffff! Lol. Gaetz they think you a loser! They are correct! Gaetz you are a loser!
Scott A Lowson
January 30, 2021 at 6:52 am
Gaetz thinking he appeals to cowboys😂🤠
David Barkhausen
January 30, 2021 at 2:02 pm
Maybe somebody who believes in the original three-legged stool of the conservative movement, one that includes a strong national defense and not telling your adversaries what you won’t do to oppose them, should mount a primary campaign against Gaetz’ isolationist views. He sounds a lot like George McGovern.
Douglas Proudfoot
January 30, 2021 at 5:03 pm
This coverage omits the facts that:
1. Democrats didn’t bother to present any evidence for Trump’s 2nd impeachement, as in Democrats’ famous cry, “NO EVIDENCE!”
2. Impeaching anyone after they leave office is an unconstitutional effort to convict that person by legislation, a Bill of Attainder forbidden by Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution.
When you consider these 2 points, Liz Cheney committed political suicide by voting to impeach Trump without evidence, unconstitutionally. Matt Goetz is just paying a shiva call on Republcan voters in Wyoming.
Marc Huitt
January 30, 2021 at 6:24 pm
@Douglas Proudfoot: There’s also the issue that the Supreme Court has refused to become involved in this political theater, so Roberts won’t be the judge in the trial – the Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy (a partisan Democrats) will be the “judge” of this farce. You know, just how 3rd-world left-wing holes administer “justice” – with Party stalwarts and ideologues.
The Democrats hate comparisons to Venezuela cept they tend to be apt comparisons.
Beth M.
January 31, 2021 at 1:41 am
Gaetz is the most useless piece of garbage to walk the planet. He has not done one thing to help anyone in his entire life. He goes on the road like a one man clown show to incite violence against a woman. A woman who had the decency and courage to stand up against someone who held a murderous coup to attempt to destroy our democracy. Cheney chose America over trump. Guess which one Gaetz chose. Perhaps if his father had made him face the consequences for his actions growing up he wouldn’t have raised a complete sociopath and traitor to the United States.
Comments are closed.