Newt Gingrich Has 1 Damning Word For Republicans Who Axed McCarthy

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had a word for the eight breakaway Republicans who voted with Democrats to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy: “traitors.” (Watch the video below.)

On Fox News’ “Hannity” on Tuesday, Gingrich went off on the small faction that caused “chaos” and said they invited negative media squawking about the Republican Party.

“From my position as a longtime Republican activist, they’re traitors,” he said. “All eight of them should in fact be primaried. They should all be driven out of public life. What they did was to go to the other team to cause total chaos.”

The GOP lawmakers led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) drove out McCarthy after months of infighting, but the maneuver will distract from Republican causes, said Gingrich, a Georgia Republican who served as speaker from 1995 to 1999.

“We ought to be focusing on Biden,” he said. “We ought to be focusing on the economy. We ought to be focusing on the border. Instead, you’re going to get a week or 10 days of the media focusing on Republican disarray. It’s an astonishingly destructive behavior by a handful of egocentric people who think they’re superior to 96% of the Congress.”

Earlier in the day, Gingrich called for Republicans to expel Gaetz in a Washington Post editorial. “He is destroying the House GOP’s ability to govern,” Gingrich wrote.