Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) said he would support expelling Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) from the GOP conference along with the seven other Republican lawmakers who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker on Tuesday.
“If it was up to me, I’d vote for it,” Joyce said in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Wednesday. “It’s a waste of time having conversations with these people. And I think we need to start working and, going forward, as a unified group.”
It would take a two-thirds vote of the membership to expel Gaetz from the conference, according to the House GOP conference rules.
Eight Republicans joined all Democrats in Tuesday’s historic vote to take McCarthy’s gavel, after Gaetz filed a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair.
Gaetz followed through on his threat to do so after McCarthy relied on Democrats’ support to pass temporary spending legislation to prevent a government shutdown.
Joyce, who chairs the Republican Governance Group, said he didn’t see how those eight members can be part of a conference when “they come on the inside, listen to what’s going on, and go outside and lob bombs in the middle.”
“He’s pathetic,” he said of Gaetz. “You can’t go on like that. Why are we shut down? Because of his antics.”
He said he had not yet decided whom to support as McCarthy’s replacement.
The Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy are Gaetz, Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.), Ken Buck (Colo.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Bob Good (Va.), Nancy Mace (S.C.), and Matt Rosendale (Mont.).
Over the weekend, CNN and Fox News reported that some House Republicans had grown frustrated with Gaetz’s antics, and some were mulling an attempt to expel him from Congress altogether, pending the results of a House ethics committee investigation. It would take a two-thirds vote in the House to do so.
Watch below on CNN.
