Republican lawmaker says Matt Gaetz’s beef with House Speaker McCarthy is personal, not ideological

Rep. Dave Joyce is warning that threats to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are strictly about personal vengeance.

The Ohio Republican said that Rep. Matt Gaetz’s push to remove Mr. McCarthy is about “grudges.”

“The idea that somehow the speaker’s responsible for his having an ethics investigation, I could tell you is completely false,” Mr. Joyce, who is a member of the Ethics Committee, said at a Politico event.

There has been speculation on Capitol Hill that Mr. Gaetz’s beef with the speaker is about an ongoing ethics inquiry.

The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into Mr. Gaetz in 2021 over allegations of sexual misconduct, drug use and lobbying violations. Investigators started contacting witnesses in July.

“I think it’s important to remember that people have grudges against him for whatever reason and they use this to take it out on Kevin,” Mr. Joyce said. “And it’s not fair.”

Mr. Gaetz, Florida Republican, has said the ethics investigation is politically motivated.

“The Ethics Committee is a captive vassal state of Washington’s uniparty leadership,” he said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “They will never pressure me to back down.”

Mr. McCarthy told CNN on Wednesday that Mr. Gaetz was working with Rep. Eric Swalwell, California Democrat, to oust him. He said Mr. Gaetz is motivated by the ethics investigation.

“Let me be very clear with you. Matt is upset about an ethics complaint. I don’t care what they threaten against me, I am not going to interject into an independent committee like Ethics. And I’m not going to put Swalwell back on the Intel Committee. So, they can do whatever they want,” Mr. McCarthy said.

Mr. Gaetz fired back in an interview on MSNBC, saying Mr. McCarthy was “lying like a dead dog.”

“This is about term limits, a balanced budget amendment and single-subject spending bills,” Mr. Gaetz said. “I am the most investigated man in the entire Congress. And right there, you saw Kevin McCarthy lying like a dead dog, because I have never asked him to interfere in any ethics matter.”

Mr. Gaetz told reporters earlier this week that he doesn’t expect to “get compliance” on certain spending bills and would call a vote known as a motion to vacate to remove Mr. McCarthy as speaker.

“We’re either going to get compliance, or we’re going to start having votes on motions to vacate and we’re gonna have it regularly,” he said. 

Fed up with the threats, Mr. McCarthy told a closed-door GOP conference meeting Thursday: “If you think you scare me because you want to file a motion to vacate, move the f——— motion.”