Florida congressman Matt Gaetz challenged anti-Trump Republican Adam Kinzinger (IL) to “bring it” after the latter named Gaetz as a target for his newly formed PAC.
Well, he actually used slightly more colorful terminology than that.
Gaetz, first elected to Congress in 2016, has fast become one of former President Donald Trump’s biggest supporters.
In a late-night tweet on Wednesday, the Florida Republican began by praising Kinzinger for his military service before making it clear he wasn’t afraid of a fight.
“Adam is a patriot who fought for America from Northwest Florida. We will always appreciate [and] honor his service,” Gatez wrote.
“Now, he wants to target my America First politics, referencing me by name,” he added. “My response: F***ing bring it.”
Adam is a patriot who fought for America from Northwest Florida.
We will always appreciate & honor his service.
Now, he wants to target my America First politics, referencing me by name.
My response:
Fucking bring it.
Adam needs PACs to win elections.
I don’t. https://t.co/TE9TPt6QJv
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) February 11, 2021
RELATED: Of The 10 Republicans Who Voted To Impeach Trump, 7 Are Already Facing Primary Challenges
Matt Gaetz was responding to an article published by The Hill in which Adam Kinzinger announced a new PAC he claims is fighting to “take back” the GOP from Trump.
Kinzinger went on the offensive against Gaetz and recently punished Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
“Oh, there’s a huge list. … I mean, look, all you have to do is see people like, of course, Marjorie Taylor Greene. You look at people like Matt Gaetz, who know better,” Kinzinger said. “I think neither of them believes the stuff they ascribe to, they just want fame.”
Ironic, considering the only reason anybody even knows Kinzinger’s name is because he’s willing to pimp himself out to liberal media by attacking Donald Trump.
Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who voted for impeachment, starts anti-Trump Republican PAC | Just The News https://t.co/I2nKPKLSKk
— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) February 1, 2021
Kinzinger voted to impeach Trump, one of 10 Republicans in the House to do so, making him a poor man’s Mitt Romney. Or a dumb man’s Ben Sasse, depending on how you look at it.
“The party that always spoke about a brighter tomorrow no longer does,” he said. “It talks about a dark future instead. Hope has given way to fear. Outrage has replaced opportunity. And worst of all, our deep convictions are ignored.”
“This is not the Republican road and now we know exactly where (that) new and dangerous road leads. It leads to insurrection and an armed attack on the Capitol,” Kinzinger suggested.
.@MattGaetz lashed out at his colleague, @AdamKinzinger, over his new PAC meant to purge Trump sympathizers from the GOP. https://t.co/SbBKhbD9rF
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 11, 2021
RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene Fires Back After Mitch McConnell Calls Her ‘Cancer’ To The GOP
Gaetz has been leading the charge in the GOP’s civil war against anti-Trump Republicans.
Gaetz actually traveled to Wyoming for a rally in which he ripped Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), another pro-impeachment Republican.
There, he suggested the only two things Cheney has done in Congress is “frustrate the agenda of President [Donald] Trump and sell out to the forever war machine.”
Cheney and Sasse (R-NE) were both censured by their own party in various counties due to their anti-Trump actions.
And many Republicans who sided with Democrats in the House are facing other issues.
Of the 10 House members that voted for impeachment, seven of them, including Cheney, already have primary challengers.
Senate Republicans have seen controversy of their own, with six of them voting Tuesday alongside Democrats to affirm that the impeachment trial is constitutional.
The post Gaetz Challenges Anti-Trump Republican Adam Kinzinger: ‘F***ing Bring It’ appeared first on The Political Insider.
Former president Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team will finish its case Friday, Trump’s senior adviser Jason Miller wrote in a tweet Thursday.
That means Trump’s defense team will use less than two days to defend the former president, who was impeached last month for inciting an insurrection. House impeachment managers are expected to wrap up their arguments Thursday after beginning on Wednesday. The trial could now conclude as soon as this weekend after Trump attorney David Schoen, an observant Jew, withdrew a request to not work sundown Friday through Saturday.
This trial is all but certain to be shorter than Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2020. Trump is widely expected to be acquitted, with Senate Republicans signaling they will not vote to convict Trump. The Senate voted Tuesday that the trial was constitutional, with six GOP Senators joining Democrats. A conviction would require votes from all 50 Democrats plus 17 Republicans.
While the president's acquittal is likely, Trump’s attorneys, Bruce Castor and Schoen, have faced criticism, including from the former president himself, for a meandering performance on Tuesday.
One of the Republican senators who voted that the trial was constitutional, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, said that Trump’s defense did a “terrible job,” arguing that they “didn’t talk about the issue at hand” and “had nothing,” Cassidy said. The Louisiana Republican had previously voted that the trial was unconstitutional.
“If anyone disagrees with my vote and would like an explanation, I ask them to listen to the arguments presented by the House Managers and former President Trump’s lawyers,” Cassidy wrote in a statement. “The House managers had much stronger constitutional arguments. The president’s team did not.”
Schoen defended the team's performance speaking with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Tuesday, saying the team "will be very well prepared in the future."
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is now exhibit A of why many GOP senators are simply too spineless to examine the impeachment case against Donald Trump on its merits. On the opening day of arguments over whether the Senate had the constitutional authority to proceed with the trial, Cassidy had the audacity to actually weigh the arguments by Democratic impeachment managers against the Micky Mouse presentation offered by Trump's defense attorneys and conclude it was no contest.
“It was disorganized, random,” Cassidy said Tuesday of the defense while explaining his vote to proceed with the trial. "The issue at hand, is it constitutional to impeach a president who’s left office? And the House managers made a compelling, cogent case, and the president’s team did not.”
D’oh. The issue at hand? How dare he! The Louisiana State Republican Party sprang into action, declaring itself "profoundly disappointed" that Cassidy was supporting a “kangaroo court” that amounted to an “attack on the very foundation of American democracy,” according to The Washington Post.
Cassidy, newly elected to a six-year term in November by a 40-point margin, seemed unfazed. “As an impartial juror, I’m going to vote for the side that did the good job,” he said. Cassidy was so persuaded by the tightness of House Democrats' rationale that he actually flipped his vote on the constitutionality question from last month, when he voted in lockstep with 44 other GOP senators against the legitimacy of the Senate trial. This time, he joined the other five GOP senators who parted with their peers both times on the matter: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania.
Cassidy is clearly a rare GOP bird at the moment, and he may feel empowered by his overwhelming reelection and the fact that he's got six years to live down this vote. Who even knows what form the Republican Party will exist in by then.
But the conversation between him and his state party is exactly what Republican lawmakers across Washington fear—or at least those Republicans who have any hints of sanity left. Under Trump, the state parties radicalized and high turnout in 2020 worked in their favor in downballot races even as a decisive number of conservative voters split their tickets to reject Trump. So Trump or no Trump, those parties are clinging to the electoral successes of 2020 as they draw the battle lines for 2022.
Frankly, it should be fascinating to see how Trumpism performs in 2022 without Trump on the ticket. Based on past statewide races in Kansas (2018 gubernatorial), Louisiana (2019 gubernatorial), and last month, and Georgia’s two Senate runoffs, Republicans have repeatedly lost high-stakes contests where Trump wasn't present. So state Republicans are betting on pro-Trump fervor to carry the day in 2022 in a situation where Trump won’t be on the ticket, many of his supporters actually believe the GOP has betrayed him, and many other conservative voters are leaving the party altogether.