Olde Hornet
Well-Known Member
The battle between Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and the GOP’s right flank is heating up, with hard-line House conservatives throwing their support behind his primary opponent after the moderate Republican called two of them “scumbags” on national television.
Gonzales kicked the hornet’s nest over the weekend when, during an interview on CNN, he went after Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Bob Good (R-Va.) — “it’s my absolute honor to be in Congress, but I serve with some real scumbags” — launching personal attacks on the conservative duo.
“Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with them at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi,” Gonzales said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.”
Gaetz, who has denied the allegation, and Good — joined by other hard-liners — shot back at Gonzales, criticizing his voting record, slamming him as a “Republican in name only” and endorsing his primary opponent, Brandon Herrera, a social media influencer and self-proclaimed Second Amendment activist who has worked to plant himself to the right of Gonzales.
“It is not surprising that one of the most liberal RINOs in Congress, who has egregiously fought real border security, and votes like a Democrat, would resort to the Dem playbook in screaming ‘racism,’” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, said of Gonzales in a post on the social platform X. “Thankfully, the people of the Texas 23rd District can vote for change and an America first patriot, in Brandon Herrera.”