New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was seen having what appeared to be a tense discussion with Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz after he opposed Rep. Kevin McCarthy in voting for a new Speaker of the House.
A camera caught Ocasio-Cortez and Gaetz discussing something in the aftermath of the first vote.
“Ocasio-Cortez and Gaetz appeared to be cordial during the conversation in the 17-second video, which ended with Gaetz and Ocasio-Cortez walking away from each other. A second video showed Ocasio-Cortez and Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar having an amiable conservation in adjoining seats on the floor of the House of Representatives,” the Daily Caller reported.
Prior to that, Gaetz gave a passionate speech on the House floor and said he voted for Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan to be the House Speaker, not McCarthy.
“Sometimes we have to do jobs that we don’t really want to do and sometimes we have to do jobs that we are called to do,” Gaetz said as he argued for Republicans to ditch McCarthy during his viral speech. “So my colleagues, I rise to nominate the most talented, hardest, working member of the Republican conference, who just gave a speech with more vision that we have ever heard from the alternative.”
“I’m nominating Jim, Jordan. Jim Jordan is humble, perhaps today humble to a fault. Maybe the right person for the job of Speaker of the House isn’t someone who wants it so bad,” Gaetz said. “Maybe the right person for the job of Speaker of the House isn’t someone who has sold shares of themself for more than a decade to get it.”
According to the Intercept, Gaetz told Ocasio-Cortez that McCarthy was trying to cut a deal with Democrats, telling them to vote “present” so he is able to become speaker.
Ocasio-Cortez said that wasn’t going to happen.
“McCarthy was suggesting he could get Dems to walk away to lower his threshold,” Ocasio-Cortez said to The Intercept about her conversation with Gaetz. “And I fact-checked and said absolutely not.”
