Florida Rep. Gaetz says Speaker McCarthy must be forced “into monogamy” with Conservatives or Democrats

EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., suggested Speaker Kevin McCarthy must demonstrate his loyalty to House Conservatives on Wednesday after he and a group of members of the House Freedom Caucus held a procedural vote on a GOP-backed bill failed to access gas stoves.

“Kevin cannot vote House Conservatives as his coalition partners on issues that involve message and facial expressions and then choose to keep them [House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries] as his coalition partner on $4 trillion follow-up decisions,” Gaetz told Fox News Digital in reference to the debt limit vote.

“He must be forced into monogamy with us as his coalition partner or Hakeem. And if Hakeem is his coalition partner, we’re not going to play the bonfire on things like the ones we’ve seen this week.”

Eleven hard-line Republicans banded together to block a procedural measure called the “Votum on Rules,” intended to precede a GOP bill that would cement Americans’ access to gas stoves. It was the first time in two decades that a vote on the rules had failed.

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Members of the Conservative House Freedom Caucus and their allies have signaled they will block further action in the chamber because they resent McCarthy for how he handled the bipartisan debt-limit agreement negotiated between him and President Biden over Memorial Day weekend Both the House of Representatives and the Senate negotiated. Many claimed Republicans had “passed” the compromise, pointing out that more Democrats than Republicans voted in favor of it in both chambers.

The rebels also accused the GOP leadership of retaliating against Clyde because he and others tried to block the House debt limit vote last week by passing a Clyde-led bill to repeal a Biden gun control provision -Government handicapped.

CONSERVATIVES BLOCK FLOOR AREA IN LATEST MUTINY AGAINST GOP LEADERSHIP

A Republican congressman told Fox News Digital that members of the dissenting group would later meet with McCarthy “to see if he understands how to put Humpty Dumpty back together.”

“We have an agreement with the speaker. And I think the work ahead is to revisit that agreement and have compliance with that agreement audited,” lawmakers said.

Ken Buck, R-Colo, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday, “I think it’s going to stand still until confidence is restored.”

Buck said of the kind of guarantees members would need: “I don’t need written commitments. We had them and they broke. So I think it is more important that the plan is actually implemented.”

He called for giving the Senate a deadline to consider budget bills passed by the House of Representatives, and if the Upper House does not move them forward within that time, “the House of Representatives will not accept any Senate legislation at all.” Buck also called for “personnel changes” in the Rules Committee and others, but did not elaborate on who.

Gas stove protection bills suffer major setback as House Republicans express disappointment with McCarthy

“Much of this could have been avoided if the Rules Committee had agreed to some changes requested by members. Even if the amendments were not passed, it would still have been appropriate if members could amend such an important bill as a debt ceiling bill,” Buck said.

Conservatives have accused McCarthy of violating the terms of an agreement reached to secure their support in the speaker vote earlier this year.

“We have to deal with the fact that the agreement that allowed Kevin McCarthy to be speaker was violated,” Gaetz said. “So now we need to restore the power-sharing infrastructure in the House of Representatives.”

He continued, “Right now, you know, we see Hakeem Jeffries in Kevin’s eyes as the more consequential coalition partner, and we don’t want that to be true. We want Kevin to be our spokesperson, not Hakeem’s spokesperson.”

According to Buck, among the “broken promises” McCarthy made in January was a failure to take action against unauthorized spending — which he said made up a large portion of discretionary spending.

“They have told me that they have been trying to get things done for several months and the Chairs are not doing the hearings and not getting things done. And they hope to rotate the chairs of the various committees,” Buck said.

Both Conservatives appeared to distance themselves from the idea of ​​calling for a “vacancy motion” which, under current terms, would only allow one member of the House of Representatives to trigger a vote to remove the gavel from McCarthy. The idea was floated by some hard-liners at last week’s conference, amid the fallout from the Debt Limit Act.

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“Certainly there are groups that are meeting and talking about this at this point,” Buck said, but added, “We don’t plan to bring the motion to resign any time soon.”

Gaetz said, “I have no intention of evicting him, nor do I wish to appease him.” When asked to elaborate, he replied, “I think those words speak for themselves.”