Rep. Matt Gaetz announced Sunday he would attempt to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy from the top job in the House, saying the “clean” stopgap bill that averted a government shutdown was the last straw.
Mr. Gaetz said Mr. McCarthy, California Republican, has made too many deals with Democrats and broken the promises he made to secure the job of speaker in January.
“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,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Mr. Gaetz, Florida Republican, also accused Mr. McCarthy of lying in negotiations over the temporary spending measure and accused the speaker of making a secret deal with Democrats about Ukraine aid.
“Look, the one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. He lied to Biden [and] he lied to House conservatives. He had appropriators marking to a different number altogether. And the reason we were backed up against the shutdown politics is not a bug in the system. It’s a feature,” Mr. Gaetz said.
Critics accuse Mr. Gaetz of harboring a personal vendetta against Mr. McCarthy, but Mr. Gaetz insists it is about conservative principles.
Mr. McCarthy blamed the clean-bill resolution to the shutdown showdown on the 21 hardline conservatives led by Mr. Gaetz who shot down the GOP stopgap bill that would have slashed spending and included border security provisions.
“If you have members in your conference that won’t let you vote for appropriations … and won’t vote for a stopgap measure, so 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 shutdown was averted.
Mr. Gaetz said he had “enough” Republicans to support his effort to vacate the chair.
“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 said. “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. Byron Donalds, Florida Republican, said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, that Mr. McCarthy’s speakership “is in trouble.”
“There are a lot of trust issues in my chamber right now,” he said. “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.”
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Still, Mr. Donalds said he was undecided on ousting Mr. McCarthy.
“I gotta 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.
Democrats are not expected to save Mr. McCarthy but are more likely to help remove him and then vote for House Democratic leader Rep. 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 of California, the former House speaker, said on CNN.
Mr. McCarthy on Saturday brushed off Mr. Gaetz’s threats to oust him after he wrangled enough support to pass a 45-day stopgap spending measure that eventually passed in the Senate and signed by the president before the shutdown deadline.
Mr. McCarthy referred to Mr. Gaetz, who had opposed him for the speakership in January, when he captured the post in a historic 15 rounds of balloting.
“I went 15 rounds, the same individuals that voted against us even having a more conservative stop calculation. The same individual that delayed us from ever getting all of our appropriations bills done did the same thing during the speaker’s race,” he said.
The bill to extend current levels of government funding for 45 days passed in a 335-91 House vote, with all the no votes cast by Republicans.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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