McCarthy ally says ‘you would have seen fists thrown’ if House didn’t recess after speaker ouster

Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) did not mince words about the tensions inside the House of Representatives during and after the vote to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the speakership, saying, “You would have seen fists thrown” if they had not left for the night.

“I’m not being dramatic when I say that,” Graves told CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper. “There is a lot of raw emotion right now.”

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The key McCarthy ally, who was not one of the eight Republicans that joined Democrats in voting to oust McCarthy, was extremely critical while on the House floor on Tuesday of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who offered the motion to vacate.

“What’s going on in this country today? What’s going on in this body? My phone keeps sending text messages saying, ‘Hey, give me money. Give me money, I filed a motion to vacate,'” Graves said, referring to Gaetz’s fundraising efforts. “Using official actions to raise money. It’s disgusting. It’s what’s disgusting about Washington.”

The Louisiana lawmaker’s harsh words underscore the tension within the House Republican Conference, with Graves telling Tapper a move to remove Gaetz from the conference would be “one of the most unifying actions of this House.” However, he sees the problem as going deeper than the hard-line Florida Republican.

Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Graves evoked the moment in January when the GOP-controlled House needed 15 votes to elect McCarthy as speaker. In order to win the necessary votes, McCarthy was forced to appease hard-line Republicans, such as Gaetz, with one of his sacrifices being to allow any one congressman to file a motion to vacate the speaker. To Graves, that move was cause for the dysfunction seen on Tuesday.

“Quite frankly, I’m not sure why anyone would even want the speakership right now. The position really lacks stability,” he said, adding that he’s not going to “make any commitment right now” about the next speaker until stability is established in the position and until the rule allowing one House member to move for a motion to vacate is abolished.

Graves concluded his interview by listing the conservative successes McCarthy achieved during his brief time as speaker and reproaching the “chaos caucus” for causing the House to be frozen and unable to get actions, such as border security, completed.

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“These are the arsonists that light their house on fire, that whine about their house being on fire, put it out, want accolades for doing it, then set up a GoFundMe page to get money for it. It’s outrageous. Absolutely outrageous,” Graves said to chuckles from Tapper.

Graves’s fellow Louisianan, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) appear the most likely to obtain the speaker’s gavel.