Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., wasn’t amused by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz’s phony performance of patriotism Wednesday during a House Judiciary Committee meeting to discuss rules for the current Congress.
Gaetz is an election denier who backed Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 election. He voted to overturn those results after pro-Trump rioters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. And he's a peddler of the racist "replacement theory" that alleges nonwhite people are being brought into the United States to replace white people. Which is to say, he’s in no position to lecture anyone on patriotism.
On Wednesday, he proposed a rules amendment that would give the committee the opportunity to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before meetings and allow lawmakers to invite “inspirational constituents” in to lead it. Maybe Gaetz planned to invite his old buddy, admitted sex trafficker Joel Greenberg? Your guess is as good as mine.
Nonetheless, the amendment was immediately panned by Democrats who noted that House members already recite the pledge on the floor daily, and that no one who supported overturning the 2020 election has any credibility when it comes to respecting the republic.
Cicilline, in particular, wasn’t having it. He proposed an amendment to Gaetz’s amendment that said the pledge should not be led by anyone “who supported an insurrection against the government of the United States in any way.”
Barring the second coming of Abraham Lincoln, I imagine Republicans might have a hard time fielding a list of names.
In the end, Gaetz's amendment passed through the GOP-led committee unanimously. Cicilline’s proposal was defeated.
The fiery exchange came on the heels of Rep. Maxine Waters’ wildly entertaining dismantling of the GOP’s purported anti-socialism stance Tuesday. A real tour de force from Democrats this week on how to rebut Republicans’ pseudo-patriotic schtick.
Watch the Cicilline-Gaetz exchange here: