McCarthy’s bid to oust Gaetz will likely fail, but he says damage is done

The feud between former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. , moved out of Washington and into Florida’s 1st Congressional District. A super PAC aligned with McCarthy spent $3 million in Gaetz’s primary in support of his opponent, former Navy Pilot Aaron Dimmock.

The PAC admits Gaetz is on track to easily win his primary on Tuesday, Aug. 20, though they believe they damaged his reputation and chances in a rumored run for governor in 2026. Gaetz said he has no plans to run for governor, but added if his plans change, he hopes to have opposition “as incompetent as these dorks.”

This effort to defeat and damage Gaetz is part of McCarthy’s revenge tour against the eight Republicans who voted to oust him as speaker. So far McCarthy is 1 for 2 in primaries: Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., the Freedom Caucus Chairman, lost, and Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., won.

The Gaetz-McCarthy relationship can be summed up with a viral moment from the Republican National Convention.

"What night are you speaking?" Gaetz asked McCarthy in the middle of McCarthy's interview on CNN .

"If you took that stage you would get booed off of it,” Gaetz continued.

McCarthy responded by bringing up allegations that Gaetz slept with a 17-year-old. That has been the dynamic ever since McCarthy was ousted as speaker.

McCarthy addressed how the feud started during a Q&A session in April.

"I'll give you the truth why I'm not speaker," McCarthy said. "It's because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old. An ethics complaint that started before I ever became speaker, and that's illegal and I'm not going to get in the middle. Did he do it or not? I don't know, but ethics is looking at it. There's other people in jail because of it, and he wanted me to influence it."

The Justice Department investigated the claims against Gaetz and informed him he would not be charged in 2023. One of Gaetz’s friends was sentenced to 11 years in prison for sex trafficking and other crimes. The House Ethics Committee investigation into the Florida congressman is ongoing. He has denied wrongdoing.

"There is not a single human being who has publicly accused me of any wrongdoing of any kind," Gaetz said on CNN when asked to respond to McCarthy’s comments. "And like, at what point after these things have been said about me for years and years, and not a single person has even accused me of wrongdoing does this sort of become a strange urban legend? My concerns with Kevin McCarthy were around his truthfulness, which, by the way, he certainly didn't advance any veracity in those comments."

Despite Gaetz being on an apparent path to victory in his primary Tuesday, Kevin McCarthy is unlikely to give up his campaign against him. The former speaker has a score to settle, and he’s got a lot of time and money.

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