Far-right Florida Representative Matt Gaetz was brilliantly shut down by a delegate attending the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee after Gaetz was seen taunting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Gaetz, who led the charge to oust McCarthy from the speakership in October 2023, noticed him being interviewed by CNN's Kaitlan Collins at the convention and went over to rag on his political nemesis.
“What night are you speaking? Are you speaking tonight?” Gaetz yelled after repeatedly tapping McCarthy's shoulder.
Gaetz presumably knew his former House Speaker was not scheduled to address delegates during the four-day convention, where former Republican President Donald Trump is expected to be picked as his party's presidential nominee.
Yet, the cantankerous lawmaker and staunch Trump ally continued making a nuisance of himself by yapping at McCarthy, telling him:
"Hey, if you took that stage, you would get booed off of it."
"You would get booed off the stage," he repeated for good measure.
Here is another angle of Gaetz making an obnoxious scene.
An RNC attendee who stood nearby and witnessed Gaetz's behavior promptly reprimanded him, calmly saying:
“Shut up, Gaetz."
"Get out of here … don’t be an a**hole."
Stunned by being called out, the beleaguered Congressman turned around in the direction of the delegate's voice and physically tried to intimidate the critic by getting up close to his face.
After struggling to come up with an incisive comeback, Gaetz remarked:
"Dude, I don't even know who you are, man."
The bystander, however, called it as he saw it and said.
"You’re an a**hole”
Gaetz then plodded off like a child being told to go stand in the corner, but not before awkwardly searching for a quick way past the other delegates and event staff standing on the crowded convention floor.
You can watch a clip of Gaetz getting the proverbial wrist slap here.
Viewers of the clip loved watching the takedown of Gaetz on repeat.
Who was the fearless challenger? People wanted to know.
McCarthy was later asked to comment on the disruption from Gaetz.
He said:
"I think it shows exactly who Matt Gaetz is."
When asked whether or not he would get booed off the stage as Gaetz stated, McCarthy, replied:
"Not at all."
Gaetz remains under investigation by the House Ethics Committee after he was accused in 2020 of allegedly sex trafficking and having sexual relations with minors.
Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and has resented McCarthy for not helping to end the Ethics Committee investigation against him.
McCarthy explained Gaetz's behavior towards him was because "he had an ethics complaint four years ago that he paid an underage girl, and she has come to ethics."
McCarthy added:
"And he came to me to try to leverage me to stop the ethics investigation. That’s illegal. I’m not doing that."
"If I had to lose my job over all the hump, the law—he tried to utilize it."
