Speaker McCarthy ousted in historic House vote, as scramble begins for a Republican leader
WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Kevin McCarthy was voted out of the job Tuesday in an extraordinary showdown — a first in U.S. history, forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives and throwing the House and its Republican leadership into chaos.
It’s the end of the political line for McCarthy, who has said repeatedly that he never gives up, but found himself with almost no options remaining. Neither the right-flank Republicans who engineered his ouster nor the Democrats who piled on seem open to negotiating.
McCarthy told lawmakers in the evening he would not run again for speaker, putting the gavel up for grabs. Next steps are highly uncertain with no obvious successor to lead the House Republican majority. Action is halted in the House until next week, when Republicans try to elect a new speaker.
Still, he said, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
McCarthy’s chief rival, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, orchestrated the rare vote on the obscure “motion to vacate,” and pushed ahead swiftly into a dramatic afternoon roll call. source
WATCH HOW HE WAS SETUP
Kevin McCarthy has a few more things to say about his ouster
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had lots of stories to tell Tuesday night.
He talked about his mom buying gas at Costco. He had complaints about Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). He went after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), again and again, for ousting him. He admitted to privately seeking out then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for advice, while publicly criticizing her. He compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler.
Mere hours after becoming the first House speaker ever removed from the position, McCarthy held a stem-winding, nearly hour-long news conference — at times indignant and combative with the gathered press, at times appearing relieved.
“I made history, didn’t I?” he asked rhetorically.
It was the capstone to an unprecedented day that started with McCarthy’s name hanging over the entryway to the speaker’s suite and ended with him walking out of his former office with a box tucked under his arm.
Shortly after McCarthy was ousted — in a charge led by Gaetz — the former speaker addressed his conference behind closed doors, telling them he wouldn’t seek the speakership again, in what was described by several Republicans as a calm and measured tone that commanded respect.
His opening remarks to the press were similarly deliberate. When he stuck to the script in front of him, it was void of the usual jabs and outbursts of enthusiasm that often punctuate his frequent interactions with the Capitol Hill press corps.
But then he cracked his first smile, with a jab midway through telling his life story about winning the lottery and how those $5,000 went much further back then “before Biden economics.”
“But you want to know the end of the story?” McCarthy asked, after recounting being denied an internship at his local congressman’s office in Washington. “I got elected to the seat I couldn’t get an internship for. I ended up being the 55th speaker of the House. One of the greatest honors.”
Taking questions for almost 40 minutes, McCarthy’s comments ranged far and wide — from a history of Hitler’s rise in Germany to mentioning a famous Italian restaurant in Washington four times when discussing House Republicans’ newly launched impeachment inquiry — prompting his staff to yell “last question” twice to no avail. For those who cover McCarthy often, it was not a rare sight to see him take every question in the room. But it happens only when he feels relaxed and is enjoying the back-and-forth.
Without the constraints of the speakership, McCarthy declared something he would not when serving as speaker: that the House as an institution is broken. He blamed Democrats for it — though Democrats pointed to his own politicized behavior as the reason they did not save him Tuesday — detailing for the first time that he had asked then-Speaker Pelosi for advice on whether he should change the House rules to allow one person to trigger a motion to vacate him from the speakership. He claimed Pelosi told him she’d back him up if his conference tried to oust him. Pelosi was not at the Capitol on Tuesday, and her office did not confirm whether McCarthy’s story was accurate.
He took another chance to poke at Democrats: “They played so many politics.”
But then he went back to criticizing the eight Republicans responsible for removing him, pinning them with the blame that led to his “fear” that “the institution fell today.”
Asked what he should’ve done differently in handling those eight, McCarthy said flatly, “A lot of them I helped get elected, so I probably should’ve picked somebody else.” He laughed.
Known for his prowess as a massive fundraiser and pressed on whether he would break his promise to not intervene in his antagonists’ primaries, McCarthy warned, “I told the conference, I’m a free agent now, and I think I’m pretty good at electing people.”
He intimated some regret in allowing the rule that just one person could bring a motion to remove him, a concession he made in his 15-round fight to take the speakership that eventually ended his reign. He warned that the “one thing he does know” is that the “country is too great for small visions of those eight” who ultimately ousted him.
“They don’t get to say they’re conservative because they’re angry and they’re chaotic. That’s not the party,” he said. “They are not conservatives, and they do not have the right to have the title.”
His advice for the next speaker? “Change the rules,” he said with a laugh.
After claiming Gaetz’s beef with him was “personal,” McCarthy got personal about Gaetz, repeatedly calling him out as a distraction who spent too much time fundraising for his own enrichment rather than behaving like a true lawmaker.
“I’m sure Matt Gaetz will give the NRCC a lot of money,” McCarthy taunted.
He claimed to be “shocked” by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) voting to oust him because he considered him a friend. But he also rebuked him for what he said was Burchett’s misconstruing a call McCarthy made to him after seeing Burchett tell the press he was praying to make the right decision on whether to vote against McCarthy.
He blamed hard-right conservatives for his ouster, but talked little about how he empowered them. When pressed on broken promises he made throughout the year, McCarthy grew defensive.
“Which word did I not keep? Name one thing I did not keep,” McCarthy said.
While McCarthy was reflective of his own career, he said little about what his political future holds. In the near term, McCarthy played coy about a role many of his Republican colleagues hope he plays: tapping a successor.
“I might, I might. I don’t know whose running,” he said. “I’ll talk to people.”
Asked whether he would resign from his seat like recent Republican speakers, McCarthy said he hadn’t thought about it yet.
He wrapped up the night with one final jab at the press.
“Look, I enjoy you. I don’t know if you’ll cover me as much, butI’m sure I won’t miss you,” he said, tapping his folder on the lectern and walking away. source
Republicans Are Freaking Out Immediately After Ousting Kevin McCarthy
No one has any idea what comes next, including those who pushed to remove McCarthy as House speaker in the first place.
House lawmakers have for the first time ousted their own speaker—and no one has a clue what comes next. In fact, some are literally crying about it.
For now, Representative Patrick McHenry will temporarily lead the House of Representatives, after being handpicked for the role of interim speaker by ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy. But that’s about all anyone knows about what happens now.
House votes to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker in historic first
Votes by Democrats, GOP rebels led by Rep Matt Gaetz combine to oust McCarthy
Lawmakers have voted to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from his leadership role, the first time in the history of the House of Representatives that the chamber voted to boot a member from the top job.
Eight Republicans voted with every present Democrat to vacate the speaker’s chair. The final vote was 216 to 210 in favor of McCarthy’s ouster.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., introduced a measure against McCarthy known as a motion to vacate on Monday night, accusing him of breaking promises he made to win the speaker’s gavel in January.
“Chaos is Speaker McCarthy. Chaos is somebody who we cannot trust with their word,” Gaetz said as McCarthy looked down at his lap.
Lawmakers have voted to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from his leadership role, the first time in the history of the House of Representatives that the chamber voted to boot a member from the top job. (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
At one point, an outraged McCarthy ally, Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., accused Gaetz and his cohorts of sending fundraising efforts on their motion to vacate. He fumed while pointing to his phone, “Using official actions to make money, it’s disgusting.”
Chants of “shame” erupted on the House GOP side of the chamber.
Gaetz responded, “When it comes to how those raise money, I take no lecture on asking patriotic Americans to weigh in and contribute to this fight from those who would grovel and bend knee for the lobbyists and special interests who own our leadership.”
A Republican lawmaker shouted at Gaetz, “You’re no martyr.”
Democrats signaled early on Tuesday that they would not be inclined to help McCarthy. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said before the vote that Democrats “are ready to find bipartisan common ground. Our extreme colleagues have shown no willingness to do the same. They must find a way to end the House Republican civil war.”
McCarthy angered hardliners over the weekend when he passed a short-term spending bill known as a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open for 45 days in order to avert a government shutdown and give lawmakers more time to cobble together 12 individual spending bills.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., introduced the motion to vacate McCarthy. (AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite)
Ninety House Republicans voted against the CR on Saturday, arguing that it was a “clean” extension of the previous Democrat-held Congress’ policies. But the speaker’s previous attempts to put a CR on the table that would cut spending for its short duration were upended by several of those same conservatives who were opposed to any such measure on principle.
The frustration at the small number of rebels was palpable among House Republicans on Tuesday morning.
“This is a distraction from what we should be focusing on, which is the appropriations process,” said Main Street Caucus Vice Chair Stephanie Bice, R-Okla. “This is all about Matt Gaetz. It’s not about Kevin McCarthy. Matt Gaetz is using the American people as pawns in his narcissistic game of charades.” source