Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday after the California Republican discriminated against DeSantis over the weekend, saying the Florida governor is “not on the same level” as his current GOP presidential rival, Donald Trump.
“Kevin McCarthy says I’m a little different than Donald Trump. I agree,” DeSantis said in one message on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. “In Florida we have budget surpluses. We have paid off our debts. I have kept all my promises. Meanwhile, McCarthy and Trump collaborated to add $7 trillion — more debt than our country accrued in its first 200 years — in just four years,” DeSantis wrote.
During a news conference Monday, DeSantis also knocked McCarthy for his battle to win the gavel earlier this year.
“Donald Trump very strongly supported Kevin McCarthy as speaker. I don’t think he would have won the speaker’s vote,” DeSantis said, calling Trump’s support “instrumental” in McCarthy’s narrow victory.
McCarthy is currently facing mounting challenges in the House of Representatives, amid the launch of a controversial impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and a looming deadline to agree on a spending bill — or face a government shutdown.
These obstacles are exacerbated by some of the concessions McCarthy has made to conservative hardliners in his caucus to win their support in the election race – most notably his commitment to lowering the threshold needed to call a vote to to dismiss him from his position.
McCarthy told Fox News on Sunday that Trump is likely to win the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination, while also saying Trump’s endorsement of DeSantis in the 2018 election cycle helped the governor win his election.
McCarthy’s jab at DeSantis comes as the Republican presidential hopeful and former founding member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus entered the spending battle.
Last week, Florida’s governor spent about 30 minutes on the phone with conservative Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Bob Good of Virginia, urging the group to continue opposing spending proposals that do not include hard-right policies. to demand.
