Republicans Can’t Stop Pointing Fingers Over Congressional Chaos

House Republicans are still going at it amid their continued failure to unite behind foreign aid packages. The newest target? Matt Gaetz.

Gaetz, who yesterday bickered with Wisconsin Representative Derrick Van Orden after the latter pushed to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson over his surprising Ukraine reversal, now faces more criticism from his own party, this time from New York Representative Mike Lawler.

Speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper Thursday evening, Lawler did not hold back when asked about GOP infighting over the aid bills.

“I look at this very simply,” Lawler said. “In October, the House was thrown into chaos by Matt Gaetz and seven useful idiots that teamed up with him within the Republican conference and 208 Democrats. And at this moment, when you see what happened in the aftermath of vacating the chair and Israel attacked in a terrorist attack a week later, to do that again would be detrimental to the country and global security.”

Lawler’s “useful idiots” comment is not even the first inter-Republican dig at a colleague’s intellect this week; Gaetz responded to Van Orden’s “tubby” comment by calling him “not a particularly intelligent individual.” It’s also not the first time Gaetz has been singled out as the GOP’s chief agent of chaos. Last week, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whom Gaetz helped oust, speculated about Gaetz’s motivations for the October motion to vacate.

Johnson has looked overmatched as speaker, unable to control a caucus held hostage by hard-liners like Gaetz, who has not yet called for Johnson’s ouster, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has. As a result, he hasn’t just failed to get aid packages through Congress; he’s allowing intraparty feuds between pro-aid members like Lawler and holdouts to fester.