The bad blood between former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Matt Gaetz spilled back into public view at the GOP convention on Tuesday night. As McCarthy, who is no longer in Congress, was giving a live TV interview to CNN, Gaetz approached and began taunting him about not getting an invitation to speak, reports USA Today. Watch the moment here. And from the TV viewer's perspective here.
- "What night are you speaking?" Gaetz asked sarcastically. "Are you speaking tonight?" After being pulled away briefly, he added, "If you took that stage, you would get booed off of it."
- Afterward, McCarthy told Politico he thought it was someone pestering him for a selfie and didn't realize it was Gaetz. "The poor guy was losing his mind," he said. "That's the fear of going to jail, I think." Gaetz, meanwhile, said he interrupted McCarthy because McCarthy was saying "untrue things about me."