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‘HOLD THE FLOOR!’ Gaetz, Freedom Caucus tell McCarthy ‘there will be no rule votes’

June 8, 2023 | | Print Article

For the second straight day, members of the House Freedom Caucus blocked legislation from advancing on Wednesday, in protest of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) disastrous deal with President Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling.

“When Speaker McCarthy and House GOP Leadership couldn’t hold the line on spending, they surrendered the ability to exclusively hold the floor,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) tweeted on Wednesday. “We are going to #HoldTheFloor and refuse to allow their failure theater to continue to play out.”


Gaetz appeared on News Nation and noted that both his friends and his critics are calling the move by the Freedom Caucus a “revolt” against McCarthy.

“We want to see recisions, more spending cuts,” Gaetz explained. “We think that McCarthy and his negotiators got rolled by Biden and the Democrats, and now House Conservatives are flexing our muscle.”

“We want to see a return to the normal budgeting process,” he continued. “We want to see review of individual bills come forward. And we’re very disappointed that we just underwrote four trillion dollars in debt over the next two years.”

“Eleven Republicans broke with their party to vote with Democrats, and the rule fell short on a 206-220 vote — the first rule vote to fail since November 2002,” The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. “We took down the rule because we’re frustrated at the way this place is operating. … We’re concerned that the fundamental commitments that allowed Kevin McCarthy to assume the speakership have been violated as a consequence of the debt limit deal.”

“We’re not going to live in the era of the imperial speaker anymore,” Gaetz said, according to The Post.

Gaetz and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room on Tuesday to discuss the takeover.

“It hasn’t happened in 21 years,” Gaetz said. “We are very upset about how the debt-limit deal came together. Kevin McCarthy ceded the authority that he had been given by the House of Representatives.”

“When we learned that it was Kevin McCarthy who gave away an additional year to ice in the agenda of the Biden regime, we were deeply, deeply frustrated about that. … It was a circumstance where the Biden negotiating team frankly played the House negotiating team and took their lunch money.”


“We fought very hard back in January to make sure that every member is empowered and that we could bring bills to the floor, we could bring legislation forward, we can amend that legislation,” Boebert said. “And, throughout the debt ceiling deal, this agreement was absolutely breached. It was a closed rule, we were not able to offer amendments, and now, immediately, members are being punished.”

Boebert said that a “member of Congress was completely harassed by many of the members of the leadership team on the House floor.”

Gaetz pledged to force McCarthy into a “monogamous relationship” with either the Freedom Caucus or House Democrats.

“What we’re not gonna do is hang out with him for five months and then watch him go jump in the back seat with [Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries,” Gaetz stated.

The duo joined Bannon again on Wednesday.

“We have told the speaker there will be no rule votes until a pistol brace bill passes,” Gaetz said.

“I’m not planning to execute on a motion to vacate today,” Gaetz told News Nation, “but I’m also not interested in just surrender or placating.”

On Wednesday, McCarthy discussed with the press the progress he is making with the Freedom Caucus.

“We’re working through it, we can’t hold up the work for the American people,” he said. “I can’t believe someone would want to hold up not allowing people to pick their own oven or stove they’d like to have.”

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Melissa Fine
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