McCarthy’s last flop

Axios ^ | 8/18/24 | Juliegrace Brufke

[cotton1706]

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's revenge tour is sputtering to an end this week, with just one primary win to show for it.

Why it matters: McCarthy's former colleagues complain he's effectively lit millions of dollars on fire and made it harder for new leaders to do their jobs.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is expected to win easily on Tuesday despite a McCarthy-linked PAC spending more than $3 million against him.

"McCarthy thinks about me a lot more than I think about him," Gaetz told us.

Between the lines: Multiple House Republicans and senior staff took issue with McCarthy's public criticisms of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), and said they saw his fingerprints on the attempted ouster of Johnson in May, sources tell us.

"[W]hen you leave, you should go off to do the next thing you're going to do. You shouldn't be trying to spend all your time going after people that you didn't like," a top House Republican told Axios.

McCarthy declined to comment.

Zoom in: Since his historic removal last fall, McCarthy and his allies have targeted the eight House Republicans who voted against him.

"They gave him that money to beat Democrats ... and now we come to find out that that money ... was, in fact, gone after Republicans," said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who voted to oust McCarthy.

Of McCarthy's targets, House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) was the only one to lose his primary, and his opponent was endorsed by former President Trump.

[cotton1706]

Had Goode endorsed Trump instead of DeSantis, he wouldn't be out on the street.

Buck chose to retire in his own (and he was awful anyway so good riddance)

Rosedale decided to run for US Senate but then withdrew, so decided to run for house again but then withdtee from that.

So five out of eight will be returning.

Gaetz (FL)

Biggs (AZ)

Mace (SC)

Crane (AZ)

Burchett (TN)

Gone\Going

Goode (VA)

Buck (CO)

Rosendale (MT)

[DIRTYSECRET]

McCarthy had no primary challenger despite everyone knowing he’d be speaker, one we would not approve of.

Blame republicans.

[LegendHasIt]

Petty little scumbag.

(Not that most of us didn’t realize that about him long ago.)

[WellyP]

McCarthy and then Johnson got behind a spoiled rich kid from way up north in Maine and pushed a LOOSER on Maine’s 2nd District. The GOP in Maine had a good man in Mike Soboleski, got a standing “O” at the State GOP convention and had a good chance of taking out Rep. Golden in November. Mike didn’t have enough money to compete with the MILLIONS McCarthy, Johnson and “F”ING RONNA gave Theriault who won the primary. If that know-nothing POS gets even 40% of the vote in November he’ll be lucky!

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Young Scums

[kiryandil]

despite a McCarthy-linked PAC spending more than $3 million against him

Be sure to vote Republican in 2028!!

[HIDEK6]

Just how loose was he?

[DIRTYSECRET]

Welly-not surprising. Golden is in a winnable district.

[SharpRightTurn]

I am so glad McCarthy is gone. He might as well have been Pelosi’s right hand man. If you want to know why the Republicans seem to get so little accomplished, you can get a pretty good idea by looking at McCarthy’s record. And now he’s proven himself to be petty and vindictive.

[MinorityRepublican]

I am so glad McCarthy is gone. He might as well have been Pelosi’s right hand man. If you want to know why the Republicans seem to get so little accomplished, you can get a pretty good idea by looking at McCarthy’s record. And now he’s proven himself to be petty and vindictive.

That's why Gaetz was right to get rid of McCarthy. And he did it quickly.

[joshua c]

i still chuckle at cantor being primaried by bratt

that was an earthquake

and it shut down the amnesty push

[SunkenCiv]

Of McCarthy's targets, House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) was the only one to lose his primary, and his opponent was endorsed by former President Trump.

[catnipman]

“Petty little scumbag.”

indeed ... and his revenge tour burning millions proves what a scumbag he was all along and good riddance to this fake conservative traitor and anti-MAGA RINO ...

[FLT-bird]

"They gave him that money to beat Democrats ... and now we come to find out that that money ... was, in fact, gone after Republicans"

That sounds exactly like the Turtle/RINO Establishment in 2022. They starved several good MAGA candidates of cash, they blew huge amounts of money to save the RINO Lisa Murkowski in Alaska when her chief opponent was a MAGA Republican rather than a Democrat and Karl Rove and others actually took out ads against several MAGA candidates. Then when the Republicans did not do as well as many were predicting based on the national polls, they tried to blame Trump!.

This is yet another example showing that RINOs are enemy #1. They must be defeated and driven from office first. Then we can wheel around and take on the Democrats.....for the first time since we won't be infested with a bunch of backstabbing RINO squishes in our own ranks.

[FLT-bird]

BTW, this is why Gaetz just laughed at the RINOs efforts to unseat him. That district of Florida is ruby red. There is simply no way some RINO squish parachuted in from DC was ever going to win. It didn’t matter if they did lavish truckloads of cash on him. Gaetz was always going to cruise to victory and he knew it.