McCarthy: Gaetz ‘looks very unhinged’

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) took his latest swipe at Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Thursday, saying the Florida lawmaker “looks very unhinged” after he taunted the former Speaker on the floor of the Republican National Convention earlier in the week.

“He looks very unhinged. I mean, a lot of people have concerns about it. And I’m not sure if he was on something, but I do hope he gets the help that he needs,” McCarthy told CNN’s Manu Raju.

“But more importantly, I hope that young women get the justice they deserve when it comes to him,” McCarthy added, alluding to the sexual assault allegations against Gaetz.

“I was on something – the stage,” Gaetz said in response to McCarthy in a Thursday statement to The Hill.

McCarthy’s comments were in response to a video of Gaetz on the convention floor Tuesday, during which he tauntingly asked McCarthy when he was slated to speak.

“What night are you speaking? Are you speaking tonight?” Gaetz, who spoke at the convention Wednesday, previously mockingly asked McCarthy.

“If you took that stage, you would get booed off of it,” he told McCarthy. “You would get booed off the stage.”

Gaetz later defended his comments in a brief interview with The Hill, saying he was counterpunching.

“He was saying something very untrue and nasty about me to CNN. So, this is a convention floor. I thought it’d be okay to convene a little bit,” Gaetz said.

The back-and-forth follows a longtime feud between the two Republicans. Gaetz was the primary force in ousting McCarthy from the Speakership last October after rallying a group of other Republicans to vote for his ouster.

McCarthy later resigned from the House in December.

McCarthy has argued he was removed as Speaker because Gaetz wanted to avoid an ethics investigation into potential sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

“I could have done something illegal and stopped the Ethics Committee investigation that started four years ago,” McCarthy said, alleging Gaetz told him to stop the probe.

“That’s what the whole motion to vacate was about. He believed — he wanted me to engage and thought somehow, I started this investigation. It started long before I was ever Speaker,” McCarthy added.

The House Ethics Committee last month said it was continuing its investigation into Gaetz, while alerting some aspects of the probe.

Gaetz has denied the allegations before the committee.

 The Department of Justice declined to prosecute Gaetz on sex trafficking allegations last February.

When asked if he has any concerns about Gaetz being in the Republican Party, McCarthy said, “No, I have concern [about] his action with young women.”

“It doesn’t matter which party you’re in, but if he would take those types of actions, I just don’t think that’s safe. I don’t think that’s right. If you see his behavior, and you see him in Congress, do you think anybody else wants to be around him?” he said.