Reply to Neal and Gaetz : Kevin McCarthy’s Revolt on the Speaker’s Role in the House of Representatives

McCarthy’s decision to change the rules of who can bring a resolution to oust the speaker puts the fringe in charge of the House of Representatives, according to Richard Neal, D-Mass. Neal said he had a “Machivellian position” about that decision in January: “Once you seal the deal, you have to take the consequences.”

McCarthy said in a television interview on Tuesday that he didn’t need help from Democrats so she did not see any reason to help him.

“I think Kevin McCarthy is among the most unprincipled, untrustworthy people I ever have encountered in the entirely of my life, and I think he does damage to this institution and our democracy,” Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a moderate Democrats, told reporters.

His comments followed a lengthy “open mic” meeting of House Democrats in the basement of the Capitol complex Tuesday. One after another, one by one, the democrats got up and told the caucus what they thought they should do and one after another, McCarthy was reprimanded for not reaching across the aisle.

“We are ready, willing and able to work together with our Republican colleagues but it is on them to join us to move the Congress and the country forward,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol.

Gaetz said that the issue is whether or not McCarthy complied with promises he made to hard-line House Republicans to get their support for the speakership in the first place.

Counting members turned into an intense project as a group of McCarthy’s critics sat in the back corner of the House floor with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., the member who set the revolt in motion. Across the room, McCarthy’s allies huddled with the speaker’s floor staff looking at notes and their phones.

Republicans and Democrats gathered around the House floor in corners trying to figure out whether or not McCarthy was going to survive the challenge. It would take a majority of the members present and voting to remove McCarthy, leaving both parties tabulating exactly how many members are present.

If the resolution does pass, the Clerk of the House will refer to a list of people who can act as speaker pro tempore in the absence of speaker. In the event that the speakership is vacant, this list will not be made public.

The fate of the Speaker: Matt Gaetz’s case against a resolution of the 2021 investigation into sexual misconduct allegations in the House of Representatives

McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol Tuesday morning that he thinks the country is in a bad situation if the Speaker is thrown out for having 99 percent of the conference.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., made good on his long-standing threat to file a motion to vacate on Monday night, taking the first procedural step toward forcing a vote to remove McCarthy as speaker. And McCarthy told reporters Tuesday that he will bring up the motion to vacate today, but it remains unclear how much support he has.

McCarthy is accusing Gaetz of harboring a grudge over his refusal to quash a congressional ethics complaint against him over allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use that emerged in 2021, telling CNBC on Tuesday morning that Gaetz has “personal things in his life that he has challenges with.”

Is it possible that four or five Republicans will get removed because they joined the Democrats? “That’s the question here,” he said. Do you think the continuity of the government is strong if 98% of the conference chooses you to be speaker but there is a congress where four people can decide if they work with the other side?

House Democrats decided at Tuesday’s caucus meeting to vote against saving McCarthy, two of them told reporters.

“There is reason after reason to just let Republicans deal with their own problems,” Jayapal said. They should be allowed to wallow in their pigty of incompetence and inability to govern.

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The House Democrats haven’t taken a stance. Some have suggested in recent days that they would be willing to help McCarthy — who directed an impeachment inquiry into President Biden just last month — but not without a cost.

Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark, the House minority whip, told Morning Edition before Tuesday’s meeting that she was not aware of McCarthy having offered any concessions.

“We are going to have to see if and when Kevin McCarthy offers something, but it is hard to trust someone who had a negotiation with the president of the United States, signed a deal — 314 of us already voted on that in the bipartisan way — and he walked away,” she said, referring to the debt ceiling fight earlier this year.

The infighting within the GOP has an impact on people in the home who are worried about the Republicans’ attacks on social security, public schools, and the freedom of reproductive rights in this country.

“We want to look at everything that we do in the House, and what is the best way to make progress for the American people?”

McCarthy was elected speaker after 15 rounds of voting. He managed to finally secure the gavel, in part by agreeing to demands from a fringe group of Republicans to change the rules on who can propose a resolution to remove the speaker — allowing just one member to do it.

McCarthy said he won’t run for speaker again. Tom Emmer indicated to reporters that he wouldn’t run. And House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said he does not have any announcement to make at this time.

He is shocked that McCarthy lasted so long, but he is more surprised that the current dynamics in the House kept him there.

“And I think that’s what’s most concerning of all, is that they did this out of retribution for him going ahead and funding the U.S. government,” Bonjean said, in reference to the short-term spending bill that was agreed to at the weekend.

Hakeem Jeffries: Is he the right guy for the job? A story of a man who fell short in the Republican-majority House

Miller-Meeks said the Republican colleagues asked Gaetz who he wanted to replace McCarthy but didn’t get a name.

Democrats say they will now put forward Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for speaker — as they did in the rounds of voting in January — but he will almost certainly fall short again in the Republican-majority House.

“The reason he failed is because too often he capitulated to his opponents, and ultimately lost his credibility and his trust as a result of that, in the hope that ultimately his opponents would somehow be loyal to him,” he said. “I think in doing that, he really undermined his credibility as speaker and that cost him.”

“I hope you realize that every day I did the job, regardless whether you underestimated me or not, I wanted to do it with a smile,” he told reporters after the vote.

Whoever is elected as the 55th speaker of the House will have to work with Democrats in order to find a way to fund the government, even if that means taking them down in a single vote.

There are plenty of Republicans that could do a great job, he said. “It’s what they just witnessed which would give many people pause in terms of whether they will actually want to do this job, because it’s virtually untenable unless they changed the ability for a small group of Republicans to toss out their leader at a whim.”