Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s job is on the line this week with Rep. Matt Gaetz promising to carry out his threat for a House vote to oust him.
To succeed, Mr. Gaetz needs only a handful of Republicans to turn against the embattled speaker. Mr. McCarthy expressed confidence in his staying power on Sunday and accused Mr. Gaetz of pursuing a mysterious personal vendetta against him.
“I’ll survive,” Mr. McCarthy, California Republican, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Look, this is personal with Matt. … He’s more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something.”
The speaker dared Mr. Gaetz, Florida Republican, to bring up the vote to remove him through what is known as a motion to vacate the chair.
“So be it. Bring it on. Let’s get over with it, and let’s start governing,” Mr. McCarthy said. “If he’s upset because he tried to push us into a shutdown and I made sure the government didn’t shut down, then let’s have that fight.”
Mr. Gaetz said his beef with Mr. McCarthy is about conservative principles, including building support to pass the 12 full-year appropriations bills instead of stopgap legislation and massive all-of-government spending packages. Up to now, the House has passed only four of the spending bills.
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“This 45-day [stopgap spending bill] does not liberate us from our nation’s financial challenges,” he said. “We remain $33 trillion in debt. We’re facing $2.2 trillion annual deficits,” Mr. Gaetz told reporters at the Capitol.
Mr. Gaetz has threatened for months to use the motion against Mr. McCarthy. He said Sunday that the last straw was Mr. McCarthy’s reliance on Democrats to pass a 45-day stopgap spending bill that avoided a government shutdown at midnight Saturday.
Mr. McCarthy’s move wasn’t popular. Nearly half of House Republicans — 90 — voted against the bill.
“I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week. I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy,” Mr. Gaetz said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
He said Mr. McCarthy had made too many deals with Democrats and had broken promises he made to archconservatives in the Republican conference in January to secure the speakership.
Mr. Gaetz also accused Mr. McCarthy of making a secret deal with Democrats to allow a vote on a Ukraine aid package when money for the war effort was left out of the “clean” stopgap bill.
“Look, the one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. He lied to Biden, [and] he lied to House conservatives,” Mr. Gaetz said.
Mr. McCarthy has blamed Mr. Gaetz and other conservative rebels for forcing him to enlist Democrats to prevent a partial shuttering of the federal government. He said the rebels voted down a stopgap bill filled with conservative priorities, including border security measures and a 30% cut to domestic spending.
Mr. Gaetz and 20 other Republicans, many of them members of the House Freedom Caucus, wanted to pass full-year appropriations bills and fight the Democratic-run Senate over spending while the government was shuttered.
“If you have members in your conference that won’t … vote for a stopgap measure, the only answer is to shut down and not pay our troops. I don’t want to be a part of that team. I want to be a part of the conservative group that wants to get things done,” Mr. McCarthy said Saturday after the bill passed the House.
Despite the 90 Republican defections, Mr. McCarthy has significant support in the conference.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, Missouri Republican, said Mr. Gaetz’s crusade against the speaker was a “waste of time.”
“The only way a motion to vacate could be successful is if Matt Gaetz did exactly what he yells at Speaker McCarthy doing, and that’s working with the Democrats,” Mr. Smith said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Rep. Mike Lawler, New York Republican, called Mr. Gaetz’s attacks on the speaker a “diatribe of delusional thinking.”
“Look, we’re in a divided government, and in a divided government, any final bill is going to have bipartisan support. It needs to pass the Senate, and it needs to be signed by the president,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Mr. Smith and Mr. Lawler voted for the 45-day stopgap bill.
Mr. Gaetz said he had enough Republican support to remove Mr. McCarthy. He would need only four more Republican votes because all House Democrats would reliably buck Mr. McCarthy.
He said it was up to Democrats to save the speaker.
“When you host this show next week, if Kevin McCarthy is still the speaker of the House, he won’t be serving at the pleasure of the Democrats. He will be working for the Democrats,” Mr. Gaetz told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “The only way Kevin McCarthy is speaker of the House at the end of this coming week is if Democrats bail him out, and they probably will.”
Rep. Elijah Crane, Arizona Republican, voiced his approval of Mr. Gaetz’s plan on social media: “Let’s roll!”
Rep. Byron Donalds, Florida Republican, said on “Fox News Sunday” that Mr. McCarthy’s speakership “is in trouble.”
“There are a lot of trust issues in my chamber right now,” said Mr. Donalds. “That was indicative also of what happened yesterday on the floor, where it took more Democrats to pass this deal to keep the government open. The same thing happened on a debt deal.”
Mr. Donalds said he was undecided. “I’ve got to really think about that. Because there’s a lot of stuff going on in that building that’s behind us. What Democrats do, I can’t even speak to right now,” he said.
Mr. Donalds did not vote on Saturday but said he would have voted against the bill. Mr. Crane voted against it.
The temporary spending measure passed the House on a 355-91 vote. One Democrat, Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois, voted against the bill.
Democrats are not expected to save Mr. McCarthy. They are more likely to help remove him and then vote for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York to replace him.
“My advice to my fellow Democrats is simple: Follow the leader. Hakeem Jeffries has done a great job yesterday,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat and former House speaker, said on CNN.
Although Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. McCarthy disagree often, both think Mr. Gaetz’s influence in Congress is overrated.
“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,” Mrs. Pelosi said.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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