Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz told Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about a possible Democrat-led bail-out during Tuesday’s House vote, according to The Intercept.
Inaudible footage showed Gaetz and Ocasio-Cortez speaking to each other during the vote for the new House speaker. Gaetz, an opponent of Speaker-designate McCarthy, told Ocasio-Cortez that McCarthy believed Democrats would bail him out, allowing him to win the speakership, The Intercept reported.
Ocasio-Cortez assured Gaetz her party would not vote in favor of McCarthy, and that she’d spoken to other Democrats who backed her answer, according to The Intercept.
“McCarthy was suggesting he could get Dems to walk away to lower his threshold,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Intercept. “And I fact checked and said absolutely not.”
Ocasio-Cortez was later seen having a discussion with Republican Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar about reports of a possible adjournment, The Intercept reported.
McCarthy failed to receive the necessary 218 votes to become speaker of the House in the first round of voting. The House of Representatives leadership election process will now move to a second round of ballots for the first time since 1923.
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