The congressman who nearly came to blows with Rep. Matt Gaetz said he was incensed by how the Florida politician was conducting himself on the House floor during the heated voting for Rep. Mike McCarthy’s speakership.
“I was just exasperated that Matt was treating McCarthy so badly,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) told The Post Saturday.
“So, I just walked over to the end the aisle a few feet away from where he was seated and said, ‘Matt I am not going to forget this.’
“I was about to walk away when [North Carolina Rep.] Richard Hudson grabbed me from behind and pulled me backward,” Rogers recalled.
He added that the whole thing was “really a big nothing burger.”
Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, said he was also surprised by the confrontation.
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“I’ve never seen Mike like that. He’s a quintessential old southern gentleman,” Gaetz said. “We have a longstanding positive and productive relationship. It was a momentary frustration on his part given the high drama and tension of the week.”
The moment was the last hurrah of anti-McCarthy forces in the chamber. The California Republican took the gavel on the next ballot — the 15th — ending the longest Speaker’s fight since the Civil War.
