Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) still do not seem to like each other almost a year after Gaetz led the motion to remove McCarthy as Speaker of the House.
During an interview with CNN on Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention, Gaetz continued to interrupt McCarthy while he was speaking with a reporter. Meanwhile, McCarthy continued to bring up the ongoing ethics investigation into Gaetz, which he says was the reason he was ousted.
While being asked about the fracturing of House Republicans, McCarthy said that right now, they are “much more united.”
“Think about that, that was all the Democrats and eight Republicans. One who’s not coming back, and the other part that you have is one person who raised the issue. He’s got an ethics complaint about paying and sleeping with a 17-year-old,” McCarthy said. “So that’s the biggest challenge we’ve had.”
However, while McCarthy was answering the question, Gaetz could be heard and seen ducking his head into the conversation, attempting to mess with the former Speaker.
“Are you speaking tonight?” Gaetz asked McCarthy mid-answer. “Hey, if you took that stage, you would get booed off of it. You would get booed off the stage.”
The interview was cut short after the one question as tension continued to grow between the two Republican rivals.
According to a report from NBC News, this wasn’t the only time that Gaetz attempted to get under McCarthy’s skin. Gaetz was also reportedly following him around the convention floor in Milwaukee, tapping him on the shoulder, and asking similar questions.
“What night are you speaking? Are you speaking tonight?” he asked.
“Hey, if you took that stage, you would get booed off of it,” Gaetz continued at another point in the night. “You would get booed off the stage.”
During an interview with NBC News, McCarthy was asked about Gaetz, to which he said that his actions on the convention floor show represented who he was.
“I think it shows exactly who Matt Gaetz is,” McCarthy said, adding he didn’t think he would get booed off stage.
During the talk with NBC News, McCarthy again brought up Gaetz’s ethics complaint, saying he had one “four years ago that he paid an underage girl, and she has come to ethics.”
“And he came to me to try to leverage me to stop the ethics investigation,” McCarthy said. “That’s illegal. I’m not doing that. If I had to lose my job over all the hump, the law — he tried to utilize it.”
Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing in the ethics case against him. The House Ethics Committee began reviewing the allegations last month.