Lauren Boebert said it would be 'childish, vengeful' for Republicans to remove Matt Gaetz after he led McCarthy's ousting

• As Matt Gaetz is criticized by various corners of the GOP, Lauren Boebert has risen to defend him.
• Gaetz had led the controversial charge to oust Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker.
• Boebert said Republicans retaliating against Gaetz would be "sorely mistaken."

Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado on Thursday warned her GOP colleagues about retaliating against Rep. Matt Gaetz for his role in ousting Kevin McCarthy.

"My colleagues would be sorely mistaken to take a childish, vengeful route and try to expel my friend @MattGaetz for standing up to failed leadership," she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Boebert is now one of the few Republican figures to defend Gaetz, after the Florida representative called for a vote that ultimately removed McCarthy as House Speaker on Wednesday.

Gaetz, who used a motion to vacate to call for a chamber-wide referendum against McCarthy, had been one of eight Republicans who voted to fire their former party leader from his role.

Boebert was not among the eight to break party lines. She had voted against the motion to vacate, saying she "didn't want to spend valuable time on a long, protracted Speaker fight."

But she, Gaetz, and other hard-right lawmakers regularly clashed with McCarthy as he vied for the Speakership in January and eventually assumed the position.

As McCarthy, of California, tried to wrangle the votes he needed to become Speaker, Boebert and Gaetz were part of the hard-right faction that refused to support him unless he gave them certain concessions.

One of those concessions was to allow any single member of the House to call for the Speaker's removal — the very rule used to push McCarthy out.

After McCarthy was voted out, multiple corners of the GOP bashed Gaetz's method of booting the former Speaker, with some taking aim at Gaetz himself.

"Matt Gaetz just got schooled by AOC and others; he was totally manipulated into doing this," Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana said on Wednesday, per The Hill.

And the Republican Main Street Caucus, which consists of around 70 moderate GOP congressional leaders, declared that it would only support a future Speaker who answered how he or she would prevent another ousting like the one led by Gaetz.

Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell weighed in, saying on Wednesday that the motion to vacate made the Speaker's role "impossible" and advised Republicans to axe the rule.

Meanwhile, McCarthy accused Gaetz of acting against him as personal payback for a House Ethics Committee investigation that looked into allegations of sexual misconduct against Gaetz.

A representative for Boebert did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.