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In January, when the 118th Congress convened and Republicans took power, it took 15 rounds of voting across four days for McCarthy to secure the support he needed to win the gavel. While other speakers throughout history have stepped down after losing the support of their party, McCarthy is the first to be ousted through a vote of the full House in the middle of a congressional term. Trump, who has allies on both sides of the speaker fight, currently believes there is little political upside to wading into the power struggle, the sources said. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who has led the effort to topple McCarthy, has endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential bid and serves as a surrogate to his campaign.
House in Chaos: Kevin McCarthy Ousted From Speakership
But there are no signs of any dealing right now, with McCarthy and nearly everyone else planted in their seats for this debate. He also said some of the GOP defections were a surprise, but surmised they might just be trying to leverage their votes for concessions from McCarthy before the final vote. In the first vote series, there were five House Democrats absent, including Wilson.
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Allies were reluctant to directly call it a “revenge tour” against the former colleagues who banded together to oust him. McCarthy drew false equivalence between the griping of sour-grape Democrats who lost elections and the pernicious legal and tactical fights Trump and his allies waged to overturn Biden’s victory. McCarthy’s ouster from a job he long coveted was induced by far-right Republicans with the support of vengeance-minded Democrats.
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Of course, even though McCarthy is no longer the speaker, he is still in Congress. He is certain, however, to face strident opposition—and it’s possible that another Republican could emerge to try to claim the gavel themselves. As McCarthy listened to the arguments against him from his GOP detractors, he sat in a chair near the front of the House chamber—smiling, laughing, and chatting with his Republican colleagues—as his gavel slipped away. Joined by all House Democrats, eight House Republicans—led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)—overruled the vast majority of the GOP conference who supported retaining McCarthy. Soon after, Mr. McCarthy told Republicans behind closed doors that he would not seek to reclaim the post, ending a tumultuous nine months as speaker.
Watch: House of Representatives tumbles into chaos as fight for new speaker erupts
House of Representatives ousts McCarthy as speaker National abc12.com - WJRT
House of Representatives ousts McCarthy as speaker National abc12.com.
Posted: Wed, 04 Oct 2023 01:43:05 GMT [source]
Never fully embraced by the party’s far right flank, the California Republican had spent the year laboring to keep his most conservative members happy by offering procedural concessions and agreeing to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Gaetz said that the one thing the White House, House Democrats and the Republican conservative caucus have in common is that they cannot rely on McCarthy. GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, who is heading the charge to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, said that leadership under the Republican leader has been chaotic. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is seated silently in the second row on the floor while members debate whether to remove him.
(Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina will serve as acting Speaker until a new one is elected.) Asked on Monday if he had any lawmakers in mind for the job, Gaetz suggested House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican and McCarthy ally. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat, said ahead the vote that McCarthy is “likely the most unprincipled person to ever be speaker of the House” before listing off reasons she would not back him. It’s not even a question of whether or not we should take any particular action,” she told reporters. But in many ways, McCarthy’s ouster was set in motion when, in deal-making with hard-right holdouts at the start of the year, he agreed to a series of demands — including a rules change that allowed any single lawmaker to file the motion to vacate. Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., wiped away tears with a tissue on the House floor, while others privately vented in the halls to reporters. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a McCarthy ally who has publicly clashed with Gaetz, urged the ousted speaker to run again.
Kevin McCarthy gives cheeky answer for his newest government gig
This is the first time in U.S. history that a speaker of the House has been voted out of office. WASHINGTON — The House voted Tuesday to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speaker's chair, with Rep. Matt Gaetz and seven other conservatives joining all Democrats present to remove him. Trump’s decision to remain uninvolved is a stark contrast from his efforts to aid McCarthy earlier this year. In January, as McCarthy battled through more than a dozen votes in his bid to become speaker, the former president stepped in at the 11th hour to lobby GOP holdouts to stand down.
“Why is it that Republicans are always fighting among themselves,” he asked on social media. McCarthy insisted he had not reached across the aisle to the Democratic leader Jeffries for help with votes to stay in the job, nor had they demanded anything in return. It was a stunning moment for the battle-tested McCarthy, a punishment fueled by growing grievances but sparked by his weekend decision to work with Democrats to keep the federal government open rather than risk a shutdown. All House members of the 118th Congress that voted against party lines or were absent for one or both votes, are noted here. Ahead of Gaetz filing his motion on Monday, it was an open question whether any Democratic lawmakers would bail out McCarthy, and whether Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) would organize his caucus to vote one way or the other. The California Republican is a true political survivor, having won the gavel in the first place when he overcame the vehement opposition of 20 Republicans after 15 rounds of voting in January.
House votes to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker in historic first - Fox News
House votes to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker in historic first.
Posted: Tue, 03 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Good has also faced some criticism from allies of former President Donald Trump for endorsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 presidential primaries. Republican strategist Brian O. Walsh, a close ally of McCarthy, R-Calif., is a senior adviser to American Prosperity Alliance. American Prosperity Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group, has placed nearly $700,000 in ad spending targeting Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Bob Good of Virginia and Eli Crane of Arizona, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact.
Those members promise more open and free-flowing debates and are insisting on 72 hours to read legislation ahead of votes. Republicans met last week for another lengthy session as McCarthy’s detractors, mainly conservative stalwarts from the Freedom Caucus, demanded rule changes to diminish the power of the speakership. Rank-and-file lawmakers have become political stars on their own terms, shaping their personal brands on social media and raising their own campaign funds. House members are less reliant on leaders to dole out favors in exchange for support. Not since the disputed election of 1923 has a candidate for House speaker faced the public scrutiny of convening a new session of Congress only to have it descend into chaos, with one vote after another until a new speaker is chosen.
Scalise announced his own bid later in the day, telling colleagues in a letter that he has "a proven track record of bringing together the diverse array of viewpoints within our Conference to build consensus where others thought it impossible." McHenry, a top McCarthy ally who also helped lead debt ceiling negotiations on his behalf, was at the top of that list. The US House of Representatives is now in recess following the historic vote to remove Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker.
“Obviously, it’s hard to imagine anything worse,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told The Daily Beast. The coming hours and days of political chaos will determine whether McCarthy will survive again or whether his career atop the House GOP, and in Congress altogether, is over. The final tally was 216 members in favor of vacating the speakership and 210 opposed.
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