McCarthy Fails to Stop Push to Oust Him as Speaker, Setting Up Final Vote

 

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday failed to block an effort to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

McCarthy is now on the brink of potentially losing the speaker’s gavel as he faces the most significant challenge to his leadership to date. No House speaker has ever been ousted through the passage of a resolution to remove them.

The House is on track to vote Tuesday afternoon on a motion to oust McCarthy led by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. It will take a majority vote to succeed.

The fight over the speakership marks a major escalation in tensions for a House GOP conference that has been mired in infighting and could be thrown into even more chaos if McCarthy is pushed out – just days after he successfully engineered a last-minute bipartisan effort to avert a government shutdown.

In a blow to McCarthy, the House failed to table – or block – the effort to oust him by a vote of 208 to 218 with 11 Republicans voting against the motion to table. The GOP no votes were Gaetz, Eli Crane and Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ken Buck of Colorado, Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Matt Rosendale of Montana, Bob Good of Virginia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Cory Mills of Florida and Warren Davidson of Ohio.

When the motion to table failed and the vote tally was announced, it was so silent in the chamber that you could hear a pin drop.

The House is now holding debate on the floor over whether McCarthy should remain speaker. McCarthy is seated silently in the second row on the floor while his critics and allies debate. He is not talking to anyone and has been looking at his phone.

The effort to push McCarthy out comes as a bloc of hardline conservatives have continued to thwart McCarthy, voting against key priorities of GOP leadership and repeatedly throwing up roadblocks to the speaker’s agenda.

House Democrats signaled ahead of the vote that they would not bail out McCarthy.

There is a significant amount of distrust and anger from House Democrats toward McCarthy, however, over his actions as speaker and the House GOP agenda.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in a letter to his caucus that leadership plans to vote in support of removing McCarthy.

“It is now the responsibility of the GOP members to end the House Republican Civil War. Given their unwillingness to break from MAGA extremism in an authentic and comprehensive manner, House Democratic leadership will vote yes on the pending Republican Motion to Vacate the Chair,” he wrote.

McCarthy told reporters ahead of the votes Tuesday that he is “confident I will hold on.” But he conceded ahead of the vote that he faces tough odds. “If five Republicans go with Democrats, then I’m out,” McCarthy said, adding “probably so,” when pressed on whether that is likely to happen. He said he is not expecting Democrats to back him up in the vote.

McCarthy told his members he will not cut a deal with Democrats, sources said.

Gaetz was directly pressed by his colleagues during a Tuesday party meeting for his grand plan, and who would replace McCarthy if he was ousted, sources said. Gaetz stood up and responded that there would need to be a new speaker’s election that plays out but didn’t name anyone he had in mind for the job.

To force a vote, a member must go to the House floor and announce their intent to offer the resolution to remove the speaker – as Gaetz did. Doing so requires the speaker to put the resolution on the legislative schedule within two legislative days, setting up a showdown on the floor over the issue.

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