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Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz claimed that he has continually tried to convince Donald Trump that he should run for Speaker of the House if the GOP retains its majority in the 2022 midterm elections.
Since last summer, Gaetz has touted the possibility that Trump could be the next leader of the House. Gaetz told Sebastian Gorka’s America’s First for the second time that he met with Trump once again to discuss the possibility.
“I just think America deserves that moment when Nancy Pelosi hands Donald Trump the gavel,” Gaetz explained.
“I told him you don’t even have to be speaker for the whole day. You could do it for like three or four hours, give us a great speech, make a few structural reforms to the institution and then you could resign and we could have another election for speaker.”
The night before Gaetz appeared on Gorka’s show, Gaetz mentioned the idea to Trump in Florida, but acknowledged, “I don’t know if I’ve fully got him to swallow the hook.”
It takes only one vote to nominate someone for the post of speaker, and they do not need to be a Congress member.
On Gorka’s show, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said her choice for the next speaker if Republicans regain the House must be someone “willing to fight for things that matter,” such as conservatives like herself and Trump being banned from social media.
“I want to see a person that’s willing to step up to the plate and be the type of speaker that will actually take action in defense of conservatives across America that have been censored and banned and had their accounts taken away,” Greene said.
As for the congresswoman’s Twitter account being banned multiple times because of her statements about COVID-19, she said this was like Big Tech companies covering people’s mouths so that “they can no longer speak in the public sphere.”
Gaetz previously said he talked to Trump about becoming Speaker of the House in December 2021.
When asked for additional details, Gaetz responded that he kept “conversations with the former president between the two of us.”
During a “Save America” rally last year in Sarasota, Florida, Gaetz also promised to nominate Trump for speaker of the House.
“After the next election cycle when we take back the House of Representatives, when we send Nancy Pelosi back to the filth of San Francisco, my commitment to you is that my vote for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives will go to Donald J. Trump,” Gaetz announced.
In June 2021, Trump told radio talk-show host Wayne Allyn Root that he found the idea “very interesting.” He has not publicly stated any desire to become House Speaker.
According to Gaetz, he discussed the issue of Speaker with Trump in December.
Gaetz discussed the upcoming 2022 midterm elections during Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest convention and Republican chances of retaking the House.
In a conversation with Jordan Conradson, Gaetz discussed the possibility of Trump becoming the next House Speaker and the GOP’s prospects of making that happen given Trump’s status as a private citizen.
Conradson: We will take back the house in 2022. Do you support President Trump for speaker of the house in 2022?
Gaetz: I was the first member of Congress to pledge that I will nominate Donald J Trump for Speaker of the House and people like to laugh but you know what? They laughed at the idea of him becoming president too. And that happened. So speaker Trump’s got a pretty good ring to it to me.
Conradson: So have you spoken to President Trump, possibly Speaker Trump about his plans for 2022?
Gaetz: I have. What I can tell you is that President Trump is dialed into races at a granular level. He’s following the fundraising, the polling, and the messaging. He is as tuned in as I’ve ever seen him and I think that’s a good thing for the politics of the right that’s right.
Gaetz stated earlier this month that he had spoken with Trump about becoming Speaker of the House if the Republicans recaptured the majority.
A reporter asked Gaetz “Do you want ex-President Trump to be the speaker?”
“I would,” Gaetz answered.
The reporter then asked him if he had spoken with Trump about the idea to which Gaetz responded, “I keep my conversations with the former president between the two of us.”
Trump recently stated that his first executive action, if he were ever elected president again, would be to restart the construction of the wall on the southern border with Mexico.
President Trump told Epoch TV’s “Kash’s Corner” on Jan. 31 that building the wall has significance outside of domestic policy because it would project a message of strength to world leaders like China’s Xi Jinping.
“First of all, the wall, even for him,” Trump said referring to Xi. “You know why? Because when he sees millions of people pouring into our country, he loses respect for our country.”
“When him and Putin and Kim Jong Un and Iran’s leaders, when they’re watching millions of people walk into our country … They lose respect.”
Source: The Republic Brief