Does Matt Gaetz Support Motion To Vacate Against Speaker Johnson Over Foreign Aid Bill Fight?

5 months ago

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) speaks to reporters about Speaker Johnson's push to pass foreign aid legislation.

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00:00Mr. Gates, so you have been opposed to moving forward on a motion to vacate.

00:04Now that they're talking about possibly changing those rules, have you changed your mind?

00:09I hope we don't have to go down that road.

00:11It was very puzzling and concerning to me that Congressman Van Orten, in a conversation

00:15we just had on the floor, repeatedly was insisting that we call a motion to vacate to the floor.

00:21He was demanding it in kind of an unhinged way.

00:26Where are you on whether or not you would support a motion to vacate at this moment?

00:29Well, I didn't support one when I woke up this morning.

00:31So do you support one now?

00:33We've got more time in the day.

00:35What do you think, just in general?

00:37No, let me clarify that.

00:39I think a motion to vacate is something that could put the conference in peril.

00:43Ms. Bobert and I were working to avoid that.

00:46Our goal is to avoid a motion to vacate, but we are not going to surrender that accountability tool,

00:51particularly in a time when we're seeing America's interests subjugated to foreign interests abroad.

00:56And explain what was going on with Mr. Van Orten.

00:58He kept demanding that we file a motion to vacate and demanding that we do it in a privileged way.

01:03And what does that mean?

01:05Does it surprise you in this climate that people might be saying that?

01:08We've heard this from Mr. Massie.

01:10We've heard this from Ms. Green.

01:12The only thing I gleaned from it is that Mr. Van Orten is not a particularly intelligent individual.

01:16You spoke to the Speaker.

01:18What was that conversation like?

01:20Intense.

01:21Why?

01:22Because we don't want to pass this bill.

01:25The only win we've gotten in the House of Representatives is blocking the Senate supplemental.

01:29And so if he's ready to throw in the towel on that, what are we doing here?

01:32And what did he say in response?

01:34I think that he views the Ukraine issue very differently than we do.

01:39We're worried about America's border.

01:40He seems to be more worried about Ukraine.

01:42What about the House working its will?

01:44The idea that many on your side have said we want the House to work its will.

01:48The idea that you might have a coalition of some Republicans and Democrats getting together on that.

01:52Is that reflective of what you want it to do?

01:54Even though it might not reflect what your policy goals are because it's not all Republicans for some.

01:58Well, my goal was to have open amendments.

02:00You want to put these bills on the floor and have absolute open amendments?

02:04I think that that would be far more palatable than the path that we're currently going on.

02:08Do you have confidence in the Speaker right now?

02:10It's diminishing.

02:11Mr. Gates, I know that you said that you went into the conversation looking for assurances

02:14that he wasn't looking to change the motion to vacate and he didn't get that.

02:17Can you characterize what he did say when you looked for those assurances?

02:20He was equivocating.

02:22Does it sound like it's going to come in the rule that they're going to do that today?

02:26We sought clarification that a change to the motion to vacate threshold would not be in the rule

02:30and we did not get the answer that we wanted.

02:32But can you elaborate on what his answer was?

02:34Yeah, can you elaborate on that?

02:36I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

02:37What was his answer to that?

02:38He was equivocating. We didn't really get an answer.

02:41If the Speaker continues to push forward with his plan putting these bills on the floor,

02:45you said your confidence in him is already diminishing.

02:48Is there a red line for you?

02:50Well, not really. For me, I want the Speaker to be as good a Speaker as he can be.

02:55I had the same goals for the last guy.

02:57But when they drift away from that, and look, when we voted for Mike Johnson for Speaker,

03:02he was fresh off of a vote against Ukraine aid.

03:05He was publicly advocating for a warrant requirement on FISA

03:09and the central thesis of his campaign for Speaker was single-subject spending bills.

03:12How do you explain that?

03:14Well, I certainly don't explain it with a rubric of success.

03:17Doesn't he have different responsibilities as Speaker, though?

03:21It's natural. I mean, some people say, well, he changed his position on FISA

03:24based on when he was on the Judiciary Committee.

03:26When you're in the Speakership, your role changes.

03:28You have to be the Speaker of the House.

03:30I don't think that being elected Speaker is a permission structure

03:34to surrender your deeply held beliefs.

03:36He says putting the bill on the floor.

03:39Sorry to interrupt you, Congresswoman.

03:41He says putting the bill on the floor for aid to Ukraine is the right thing to do.

03:44What do you say?

03:45I think the right thing to do would be insist on securing America's border.

03:48There's $250 million in this Ukraine bill for the World Bank

03:52with no even constraint that that money go to Ukraine.

03:56We're funding sub-Saharan African nations that don't even like us.

03:59One of the countries that could get money through the World Bank provision is Niger,

04:02where America currently has 1,100 service members who can't get food, medicine, or mail

04:06because the Nigerian government won't allow diplomatic overflights.

04:09So we're not just funding our allies in this bill.

04:12We're funding our enemies, and we're doing so forsaking the American border.

04:16That's what our voters focused on.

04:18And Ms. Bulbert and I want to get this Congress aligned with where the American people's interests are.

04:22That is securing the southern border of the United States,

04:25not securing the eastern border of Ukraine.

04:27Did you get anything from throwing out Kevin McCarthy?

04:30Yeah, we got Hunter Biden under oath.

04:32We got thousands of hours of additional...

04:34But the policies haven't changed.

04:36Well, I think that the policy on Mayorkas impeachment changed.

04:38Kevin McCarthy was blocking the impeachment of Mayorkas.

04:41Mike Johnson allowed us to impeach Mayorkas.

04:43I think that is the type of proactive action to get border response that this House wants.

04:50So I think that... Let me finish answering Mona's question.

04:52So I think we got more January 6th tapes.

04:55We got the impeachment of Mayorkas.

04:56We got Hunter Biden under oath.

04:57But on spending, Mike Johnson felt iced in to the Kevin McCarthy spending regime

05:03that was negotiated during the FRA.

05:05I think we should have liberated ourselves from the Kevin McCarthy deal

05:09when we liberated ourselves from Kevin McCarthy.

05:11Unfortunately, Mike Johnson has been on the path.

Does Matt Gaetz Support Motion To Vacate Against Speaker Johnson Over Foreign Aid Bill Fight?

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