What in the World Were You and Your 19 Colleagues Doing?’ Geraldo Demands Matt Gaetz Explain ‘Torturing’ of Kevin McCarthy

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Geraldo Rivera did battle on Thursday’s Hannity on Fox News, where the latter asked the congressman about his votes against Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for the position.

Earlier this month, the House needed 15 ballots to elect McCarthy. Gaetz was arguably the most vehement opponent among 20 or so holdouts, but ultimately he switched his vote to “Present,” which gave McCarthy a majority of the votes cast for speaker.

“What in the world were you and your 19 colleagues doing torturing the speaker, your speaker, your speaker-designate Kevin McCarthy?” Rivera asked Gaetz. “What was that for? What did you hope to attain in that?”

“So, first of all, I’ve got some constituents in the military that could talk to you about real torture,” Gaetz replied. “I don’t think sitting through 15 votes quite qualifies.”

He reiterated his longtime complaint that the House votes on omnibus bills with little notice and which fund a slew of unrelated agencies and programs.

“We believe that instead of having omnibus spending legislation that comes to us with only a few hours to consider thousands of pages and then vote on something that funds every agency of the government all at once, that we should take individual votes on appropriations bills,” he said. “That’s a concession we didn’t have when voting began. It’s one we earned by the time it ended.”

The congressman said the House will no longer have to vote on disparate funding items:

We also believe that when bills are considered, they should comport to a single subject so I don’t have to do what I’ve had to do in the past, and vote on the farm bill at the same time you’re voting on whether or not there’s gonna be war powers in Yemen. We also wanted open amendments so Republicans or Democrats could offer germane adjustments to legislation and everyone could take votes on these things. You know, members of Congress, speakers, they come and go, but when–

“Congressman, with your filibuster right now, you are portraying yourself to the American people as a thoughtful legislator,” Rivera interrupted.

“Thank you,” Gaetz replied.

“And yet, the publicity that you get – characteristically – almost inevitably is flamboyant, it’s confrontational–”

After some crosstalk between the two and host Sean Hannity, Gaetz took issue with Rivera’s remark.

“I make a substantive argument about changes to the process and you call me flamboyant and confrontational?” he asked.

“He answered your very specific question about what he was fighting for,” Hannity said. “My only argument – and Matt and I talked in December, you can verify this as true – my only beef with everybody was I wanted everybody to be in full agreement by January 3rd. Four days, it came and went. Now everybody’s on the same page.”