In a somewhat surprising move, the official White House X—formerly Twitter—account reposted Fox News reporter Liz Elkind's quotes from Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz.
While speaking to the press, Gaetz—an "America First" MAGA Republican—attacked GOP Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, blaming the California Republican for the impending government shutdown.
The federal fiscal year ends at midnight on September 30. Without an approved budget or a continuing resolution authority (CRA) passed by then, all but essential functions will have to cease operations.
Gaetz told reporters:
“We will have a government shutdown and it is absolutely Speaker McCarthy’s fault.”
In a rare move for a member of the GOP, Gaetz added:
“We cannot blame Joe Biden for not having moved our individual spending bills."
"We cannot blame House Democrats. We can’t even blame Chuck Schumer in the Senate.”
Taking note of the veracity of Gaetz's comments to the press, the White House X account shared the post with an added meme.
It read:
"Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point"
People concurred with Gaetz's assessment of McCarthy.
Others had nothing but love for the White House's trolling.
Gaetz has been on the offensive against McCarthy for the past few weeks.
During a Tuesday appearance on Fox News’ Hannity, Gaetz said:
"Speaker McCarthy deserves all the criticism and more because it's his fault that we haven't considered individual appropriations bills up to this point—[like he said we would in January]."
"That's not a bug in the system. It's a feature."
"They want to jam us under the time pressure of the government running out of money and the fear of a shutdown so that the lobbyists and special interests who own Kevin McCarthy get to make the decisions."
Gaetz and his fellow conservative House Freedom Caucus members stalled McCarthy’s election as House Speaker in January. McCarthy’s ultimate one-vote win came after a record 15th round of voting.
They eventually agreed not to continue to block McCarthy—with many voting present—after he agreed to restore a rule on the procedure for removing a sitting Speaker to allow one House member to force a recall vote at any time.
Pundits have speculated Gaetz's offensive against McCarthy may precipitate the Freedom Caucus asking for a recall vote.
