Rosendale Votes With Dems, McCarthy Ousted as Speaker

Montana's Eastern District Congressman Matt Rosendale (R-MT02) voted with House Democrats once again, this time ousting Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as Speaker of the House.

The other 2 Republicans in Montana's Congressional Delegation are clearly not happy with the vote, and Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) and Congressman Ryan Zinke (R-MT01) are making that publicly clear.

How's it going to play back here in Montana?

While all the news was going down on Tuesday I was lucky enough to be driving from Billings to Great Falls, so I was able to catch some great talk radio and also listen in on the McCarthy press conference. I also caught part of Special Report with Brett Baier.

Brett played a clip from Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz defending Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House back in the day. Gaetz said if Republicans ousted Ryan as Speaker, the GOP caucus would splinter into various factions and it would only help Democrats.

I think there are going to be factions of the GOP base who absolutely love this takedown of Kevin McCarthy led by Florida's Matt Gaetz (R-FL). There are also going to be a lot of Republicans who despise what just took place.

John Jackson, the Joker from Twitter who joins us on the radio from time to time, is celebrating this move. He says this is a message to "big GOP. WE ARE DONE WITH YOUR BS." Meanwhile, another one of our popular callers, Nancy in Roundup, is describing Rosendale as part of "the 8 GOP traitors" for voting against over 200 of their fellow Republicans and allowing Democrats to topple a GOP Speaker and thwart the conservative agenda. I consider both John and Nancy to be pro-Trump MAGA conservatives.

Russ in Billings sent us this message on our app overnight:

Rep. Rosendale has basically signed his political death certificate as far as I'm concerned...How in the name of everything that is holy can you entertain the thought of challenging Jon Tester when you just voted with every Democrat in the US House???? SERIOUSLY!!!!

Nicole in Columbus sent us this message earlier in the day Tuesday ahead of the vote:

I still support Matt Rosendale, he is standing for Montana and the USA, he isn't for McCarthy's plan to work with Libs to send more of our hard earned money to Ukraine.

 

Now- back to Senator Daines and Congressman Zinke.

Senator Daines was quoted by the Washington Times criticizing Rosendale for his reported comments that he was praying for the GOP to have a smaller majority in Congress following the 2022 elections. (Read more about that story, including what Rosendale told me in response by clicking here)

“I didn’t realize that Matt Rosendale and Nancy Pelosi attend the same prayer group,” Mr. Daines told The Washington Times.

Meanwhile, Congressman Zinke, who served as President Trump's Interior Secretary, reminded conservatives of the photo capturing the moment where Rosendale refused to take a phone call from President Trump. Zinke was responding to a tweet from Republican Senator and fellow Iraq war veteran Tom Cotton (R-AR) who criticized Rosendale as "Maryland Matt"- a moniker Democrats used to defeat Rosendale in the 2018 Senate race against liberal Senator Jon Tester (D-MT).

Stay tuned.

I was LIVE on the radio and got a message from Congressman Rosendale about the prayer story Tuesday morning. I immediately replied and offered for him to join us on the radio right at that moment, or just a few minutes later. His staff later said that he was busy at that time. Several days ago we also offered him to join us for a full hour statewide radio townhall meeting taking phone calls from across the state.

Meanwhile, I am busy on the road this week broadcasting LIVE from the Montana Electric Cooperatives Association annual meeting in Great Falls today, from the Montana Equipment Dealers in Whitefish Thursday, and then LIVE from Columbia Falls on Friday. That being said, I'll try and see if we can free up a few minutes to hear from Congressman Rosendale later this morning (Wednesday)- although a full hour with calls from Montanans would be even better.