House Member Almost Physically Fights Matt Gaetz During Private Meeting

Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla) almost got into a physical altercation during a private meeting.

As emotions got heated Rep. Bost and Rep. Gaetz almost got into a physical altercation during a three hour meeting on the topic of electing Rep. Jim Jordan as the next House Speaker.

The Daily MaiL Reported “Bost was allegedly blaming Gaetz for ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy over two weeks ago and plunging the House into disarray and cursing him out.”

Bost later apologized to Gaetz privately for his actions.

🚨Report: Mike Bost tried to fight Matt Gaetz in the GOP conference meeting this morning. pic.twitter.com/8a3qYHm1OE

— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) October 19, 2023

Someone tried to fight Gaetz in conference.

— Anna Paulina Luna (@realannapaulina) October 19, 2023

Here’s what The Daily Mail shared:

House Republicans almost came to blows in an hours-long all-conference meeting on Thursday, with Jim Jordan’s bid for speaker hanging on by a thread.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., got into a near-physical altercation as emotions reached a tipping point during the three-hour meeting.

Bost was allegedly blaming Gaetz for ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy over two weeks ago and plunging the House into disarray and cursing him out. Gaetz said Bost later apologized for getting emotional.

The House has been paralyzed for 16 days as Republicans scramble to find a candidate that can get 217 votes – an increasingly hard feat with the divisions with their conference.

Gaetz described the meeting ‘like a Thanksgiving dinner’ with Bost being the drunk uncle.
After meeting with the whole Republican conference for nearly four hours, Jordan held a smaller sit-down with those who opposed him. None of the holdouts who attended the meeting signaled they could be swayed to vote for him.

‘We want nothing. That’s the problem is we want nothing,’ Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., told DailyMail.com when asked if there was anything Jordan could offer to change his mind.

Flashback to Mike Bost yelling at Gaetz back in January.

Angrily defending his sugar daddy's speakership bid.

At this point, it’s clear that Matt Gaetz should be the speaker. pic.twitter.com/kWDppJHFce

— Lauren Witzke (@LaurenWitzkeDE) October 19, 2023

Per Politico:

When Matt Gaetz stepped to the microphones during Thursday’s three-hour private House GOP meeting on the speakership, the speaker he ousted promptly yelled at him to “sit down.”

Kevin McCarthy was not the only Republican to vent fury with Gaetz, the Florida conservative who successfully ousted the House’s leader. The room met Gaetz with booing, profanities and calls to back off, according to multiple lawmakers in the room. When Gaetz refused, Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.) stood up and hollered a command at him that one Republican recalled as: “If you don’t sit down, I’ll put you down.”

It seems that every day without a speaker brings a new release of pent-up anger from the House GOP, which is stuck in the bewildering position of technically controlling a chamber of Congress where it can’t even vote on bills. At the moment, their latest pick for speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), cannot win the gavel on the floor and yet still won’t end his campaign — preventing a half-dozen or more other ambitious GOP lawmakers from jumping into the race.

Republicans’ inability to elect a new leader is so acute that by Thursday, they squabbled over whether to empower a colleague who they wouldn’t elect to control the floor, only to jettison that idea hours later. Those talks about elevating Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) quickly grew nasty as conservatives accused fellow Republicans of pursuing a power-sharing arrangement with Democrats.

🚨 JUST IN: Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL) reportedly tried to fight Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in the GOP conference meeting this morning. pic.twitter.com/6RzxJWT5CS

— Proud Elephant 🇺🇸🦅 (@ProudElephantUS) October 19, 2023

Mike Bost has had a history of angry outbursts.

In 1986 he killed his neighbor’s dog .

Per HuffPost:

In 1986, when a neighborhood beagle named Rusty bit Bost’s 4-year-old daughter. The report filed by animal control officials indicates that the girl provoked the attack by chasing the dog. She ultimately had to get 19 stitches on her face.
According to court records, Bost was displeased that authorities would not be able to deal with the 10-year-old dog immediately. So he got his handgun, drove to Rusty’s owner’s home, and shot the dog to death while it was penned in an enclosure.

As a state legislator he went viral for this angry outburst: