Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blasted CNN anchor Jake Tapper for “wasting” his time with conservative firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz after bringing the Florida Republican on to discuss whether he planned to file a motion to vacate current Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) chair.

Arguing that Gaetz was only concerned about self-promotion, she claimed he had no real following in the House and that the media was paying too much attention to him.

“You’re wasting your time on that guy because he has no sway in the House of Representatives, except to get on TV and raise money on the internet,” she told Tapper in an appearance on Sunday after the Gaetz interview, during which he said he planned to file his motion to vacate this week.

The Hill added:

The motion sets up a decision for Democrats, who could save McCarthy by voting for him, or possibly by voting present. The motion is likely to succeed if Democrats vote against McCarthy, since Republicans have such a slim majority in the House.

Pelosi did not say how she plans on voting, but she said Democrats should take their cue from House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

“My advice to my fellow Democrats is simple: Follow the leader,” she told Tapper.

She went on to praise Jeffries for helping to pass a 45-day continuing resolution to keep the government funded, adding: “It was a victory for Democrats, a defeat for the MAGAs.”

Pelosi also complained that when Republicans controlled Congress during then-President Donald Trump’s term, whom she referred to as “what’s his name,” some $2.5 trillion was added to the national debt. But in fact, according to CNN, the national debt rose more under then-President Barack Obama’s two terms than it did under Trump’s single term, even after Republicans passed a historic tax cut.

In a February speech on economics, “Biden mentioned ‘record deficits,’ plural, under Trump,” but “only one Trump-era deficit, in pandemic-era fiscal 2020, was actually a record; the deficits in fiscal 2017, 2018 and 2019 were all lower than every deficit in Obama’s first term, when the country was emerging from a major recession and Obama approved some policies that increased deficits,” CNN said.

During his interview with Tapper, Gaetz predicted that McCarthy would be saved by Democrats after the Speaker previously dared Gaetz to file a motion to vacate.

Here’s a partial transcript:

CNN ANCHOR JAKE TAPPER: So, you have been threatening to topple McCarthy, issue a motion to vacate the speakership, if he worked with Democrats to fund the government with a clean C.R., a clean government spending bill, which is exactly what he did on Friday and Saturday.

The House gavels back in tomorrow at noon. Are you going to make a motion to vacate?

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Speaker McCarthy made an agreement with House conservatives in January. And, since then, he has been in brazen, repeated material breach of that agreement.

This agreement that he made with Democrats to really blow past a lot of the spending guardrails we had set up is a last straw. And then, overnight, I learned that Kevin McCarthy had a secret deal with Democrats on Ukraine.

So, as he was baiting Republicans to vote for a continuing resolution without Ukraine money, saying that we were going to jam the Senate on Ukraine, he then turns around and makes a secret deal.

Now, I know you and I probably have different views on U.S. involvement in Ukraine, but however you think about that question, it should be subject to open review analysis and not some backroom deal.

So, I do intend…

TAPPER: So, motion to vacate tomorrow?

GAETZ: I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week.

TAPPER: This week.

GAETZ: I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy.