Pensacola Times

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla) says he disagrees with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s warning to fellow Republicans to refrain from challenging the Electoral College.

On Jan. 6, Congress will meet to either accept the Electoral College vote or challenge the electors in some of the battleground states.

During a recent episode of his podcast “Hot Takes with Matt Gaetz,” Gaetz said that based on the rules, both a member of the House and a Senator must sign the challenge for it to be upheld.

“What I can tell you from my behind-the-scenes discussions with House members is that House members in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania are elbowing each other out of the way for an opportunity to challenge these election results based on irregularities and the evidence that we've seen in some of these state legislative hearings regarding how the voting process deviated from law, how people took action outside of legislative purview in changing the rules of the election,” he said.

Some of the hesitation can be attributed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s warning to fellow Republicans to not challenge the election results, Gaetz said.

“Mitch McConnell has warned Republican senators against joining Mo Brooks or Jody Hice or Andy Biggs or any other number of House members who might make such a challenge,” he said. “And there are rumblings out of that Senate meeting that there was no pushback to McConnell when McConnell said that senators should not join members of the House of Representatives, that there was tacit, I guess, agreement to that.”

Many have speculated about who will join U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks in his quest to challenge the electors and keep President Trump in office. 

Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Ga.) and Congressman-elect Barry Moore have both promised to support Brooks when they take office next month.

“If we have debate and discussion about these irregularities, if we utilize the Congress to try to actually solve problems regarding election integrity, I think the union will hold,” Gaetz said. “I don't think it's some grave attack on democracy to use a constitutional process to create an objection to have a reasonable debate based on the facts before us and to show the country what happened and then let the chips fall where they may.”