Feuds on Capitol Hill are nothing new, but the current Congress has featured some doozies.
From the historic toppling of a House Speaker to the profanity-laced sniping between conservative hard-liners, the last 16 months have been chock-full of momentous clashes that have roiled both chambers and played an outsized role in how Congress functions.
Those personal tensions reflect the broader polarization of Congress and the country, trends that have been exacerbated by the ubiquity of social media, the rise of the attention economy and the decline of political civility in the era of former President Trump.
Here are the seven biggest feuds in this Congress.
Kevin McCarthy versus Matt Gaetz
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) speaks with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as the House votes to adjourn following the fourteenth ballot for Speaker on Jan. 6. (Greg Nash)
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made history on several fronts in the 118th Congress, none of them reason to crow.
It took him 15 rounds of voting to overcome conservative resistance and win the gavel in January of 2023 — the longest Speaker’s vote since the Civil War. Nine months later he would be booted from power by eight of those same hard-liners, marking the first time since the nation’s founding that a Speaker was ejected.
And standing at the center of both ordeals was Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida bomb-thrower who thrives on conflict and takes no prisoners.
It was Gaetz who became the face of the McCarthy opposition during the marathon Speaker’s contest, denying McCarthy a victory on the 14th round by voting “present” — a move that almost sparked a physical brawl on the chamber floor. And it was Gaetz again who would, months later, force a vote on the resolution that would lead to McCarthy’s removal.
The Speaker, Gaetz said days before the vote, is “a sad and pathetic man who lies to hold on to power.”
Since then, the feud has only intensified.
When the dethroned McCarthy announced he would resign from Congress altogether in December, Gaetz mocked him with a terse social media post: “McLeavin’,” he wrote on the social platform X.
More recently, McCarthy has accused Gaetz of taking him down only to halt an ethics investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct swirling around the Florida lawmaker.
The latest salvo in the fierce back-and-forth came Wednesday, when McCarthy told Politico that he was endorsing Gaetz’s primary opponent.
“Gaetz is the Hunter Biden of the Republican Party,” he said.
John Fetterman versus Bob Menendez
Sen. John Fetterman speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol February 07, 2024. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) – Senator Bob Menendez speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Dec. 6, 2023. (Photo by Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The animosity between first-term Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and veteran Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who is facing a slew of felony charges, has blown up into one of the biggest beefs in the Senate.
Fetterman has repeatedly called on Menendez, who has been charged with accepting bribes, obstructing justice and acting as a foreign agent, among other charges, to resign from the Senate — as has more than half the Senate Democratic Caucus.
But Fetterman has gone further than many senators by confronting Menendez personally, such as when he shouted to his New Jersey colleague that it would be a good day for him to resign while they passed each other on the escalators in the Senate subway.
Fetterman earlier this year called Menendez a “sleazeball” and questioned why he’s being allowed into classified briefings with senior administration officials.
Menendez has kept mostly quiet about Fetterman’s scorn but has revealed in subtle ways that his colleague’s barbs are rankling…
This article was originally published by a thehill.com . Read the Original article here. .