McCarthy’s last flop
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Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's revenge tour is sputtering to an end this week, with just one primary win to show for it.
Why it matters: McCarthy's former colleagues complain he's effectively lit millions of dollars on fire and made it harder for new leaders to do their jobs.
- Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is expected to win easily on Tuesday despite a McCarthy-linked PAC spending more than $3 million against him.
- "McCarthy thinks about me a lot more than I think about him," Gaetz told us.
Between the lines: Multiple House Republicans and senior staff took issue with McCarthy's public criticisms of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), and said they saw his fingerprints on the attempted ouster of Johnson in May, sources tell us.
- "[W]hen you leave, you should go off to do the next thing you're going to do. You shouldn't be trying to spend all your time going after people that you didn't like," a top House Republican told Axios.
- McCarthy declined to comment.
Zoom in: Since his historic removal last fall, McCarthy and his allies have targeted the eight House Republicans who voted against him.
- "They gave him that money to beat Democrats ... and now we come to find out that that money ... was, in fact, gone after Republicans," said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who voted to oust McCarthy.
- Of McCarthy's targets, House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) was the only one to lose his primary, and his opponent was endorsed by former President Trump.
- "Every dollar, every dollar that we have, should be going, we're raising this cycle, should be going to defending a greater majority of the House, not work on, not work on a revenge tour," a GOP lawmaker told Axios.
The other side: McCarthy allies have defended his work against those who moved to oust him, arguing they deserve repercussions.
- "Matt Gaetz has done more damage to the Republican Party than any Democrat in the history of Congress. Gaetz needs to self-actualize and just be on a reality television show, he has no business being in Congress," Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) told Axios.
