Let me set this up slightly.

I know very little about the video. It appears to be the moment that Matt Gaetz is told that his little run at Speaker McCarthy is over. It also appears that Gaetz learns something highly disturbing (about what the GOP is prepared to do to him if he doesn’t follow instructions).

Now, if it were a normal, well-evolved adult male congress-critter with a wife, some great kids, and a medium-sized home in the suburbs of Omaha, there’s likely little one could say that would elicit the abject terror that overcomes Gaetz. But Gaetz isn’t the normal guy with a great wife and good life in Omaha. Not long ago, it looked to be a sure thing that Gaetz would be indicted for raping a 17-year-old and crossing state lines (“Statutory rape” is “rape”), and yet in unbelievably corrupt northeast Florida, Gaetz believes he is more powerful than ever.

More powerful than ever until this moment, and I’ll speculate. Gaetz was infamous for showing pictures of his conquests to his equally juvenile and perverted friends on the House floor. It could be something like that that would bring out this kind of reaction from Matt. I don’t know the identity of the guy speaking to Gaetz but the pat on the head and Gaetz looking like he’s suddenly so terrified he’s going to be sick means he didn’t like what he heard:

As I promised, THAT IS NOT NORMAL.

***UPDATE***

Dino, aka “the smart one” – as opposed to me, whatever I am, got to the gist of when this took place. It was NOT the last actual change in vote. But look, if Gaetz looked like that and still voted as he did, then I can’t imagine how he looked when he did come around. Unless he was actually relieved when they came around to say they weren’t unloading on him.

Anyway: From Dino’s Comment Below

Snell is misreporting this. Gaetz never changed his vote he voted “present” on both the 14th and 15th ballots. McCarthy and his minions got the other five or six holding out to change THEIR votes from other candidates to “present” which is what put him over the top.

https://apnews.com/article/politics-kevin-mccarthy-matt-gaetz-florida-f2a4a42b4845f2413cca5c1b4c6100dd

Yeah. Hey, I admitted up top. I didn’t know what to make of it, and I went like 50 tweets down trying to find someone who knew. And I’ll take any story on that look on Matt any time.

I join the column where it becomes relevant again:

Gaetz didn’t have room to breathe. But he didn’t dare say, “give me some space.” He was 100% tamed at that moment, highly uncomfortable, and even more uncomfortable thinking about what he was told afterward.

We will likely never know. But a guy famous for showing pics of 18-year-old girls, possibly a 17-year-old… pics of a 17-year-old… a phone call back to North Florida saying, “We have a problem, and you need to stop protecting your boy because he’s gotten a little out over his skis” is about right.
****
[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK: REPUBLICANS INCREASINGLY BACKING RUSSIA, OFFENSIVE BUT EASILY EXPLAINED

 

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9 COMMENTS

  1. Watching Gaetz getting this kind of treatment is, in my opinion, prime Thursday evening entertainment. Thanks very much, Politizoom!

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  2. Those pics weren’t of “conquests”, but rather females (often under age – statutory rape as you point out) he paid for sex. It wasn’t his charming them that got him laid, it was shelling out their fee to service him.

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      • I dug up the link, but watched it as it happened. So many folks on Twitter are saying Gaetz changed his vote when he didn’t I chose not to leave it uncommented upon here. But consider this: if they were going to threaten him why did they wait until the humiliation was almost complete?

  3. “Listen up, Matt. If you don’t want to spend the next two years with Lindsey Graham pushing in your stool every morning, you better learn to play f**king ball.”

    😄😄

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  4. At the very end, after the guy finishes telling him whatever he told him, Gaetz says something, and from the movements of his mouth I can see he is saying “Okay”.

  5. I an STILL waiting for the DOJ to give these congressional seditionists their legal cuomeupance, but for how long will we continue to wait. I see how rapidly the investigation and arrests moved forward in Brazil after the insurrection of Jan 8, 2023, and STILL the DOJ is hemming and hawing and dragging out a clear case of seditious terrorism against the United States. Even Iran/Contra and Watergate didn’t drag on for so long.

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