McCarthy Shrugs Off Gaetz’s Threat To Oust Him As House Speaker: ‘Bring It On’

Topline

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told CNN on Sunday he will file a motion seeking to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) this week, leading McCarthy to tell Gaetz to “bring it on,” after the House leader used Democratic votes to pass a funding bill that didn’t meet Gaetz’s demands for steep spending cuts—averting a government shutdown with hours to spare.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said on “State of the Union” Sunday morning that he will move to vacate … [+] U.S. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from his speakership later this week after McCarthy moved forward a bill that required Democratic support to avoid a government shutdown. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

“I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid,” Gaetz told Jake Tapper on State of the Union, arguing, “we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy.”

Because Republicans only have a slim majority in the House and some McCarthy supporters have said they’d stand by him, Gaetz would need the help of Democrats for his motion to vacate McCarthy to earn a simple majority—though he said Sunday Democrats“probably will” bail McCarthy out and not vote against him.

McCarthy went against far-right members of his party Saturday when he brought a continuing resolution that added money for disaster relief—but didn’t include additional funding for Ukraine—to the House floor; it passed 335-91, meeting the two-thirds threshold required but largely relying on Democrats.

Chief Critic

“Bring it on,” McCarthy said in an interview on CBS’ Face the Nation. The speaker called Gaetz’ threats “nothing new,” adding: “I’ll survive. This is personal with Matt.” McCarthy also said Gaetz is “more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something.”

News Peg

Congress avoided a government shutdown by hours yesterday after McCarthy brought the bill to the House floor. The heavily Democrat-backed effort began in the House and continued into the Senate, which passed the last-minute stopgap measure that keeps the government funded for another 45 days and keeps federal employees paid for the time being. Lawmakers still need to finalize budget appropriations, but the crisis was averted temporarily.

Crucial Quote

“Look, the one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. He lied to Biden, he lied to House conservatives,” Gaetz told Tapper on Sunday.

Contra

Though Gaetz said it’s likely Democrats “bail” McCarthy out and let him remain as Speaker of the House, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said on CNN Sunday morning that McCarthy is “a very weak speaker” and she “absolutely” would vote for a motion to vacate the position. “I believe that it’s up to the Republican conference to determine their own leadership and deal with their own problems,” Ocasio-Cortez told Tapper on State of the Union. “But it’s not up to Democrats to save Republicans, from themselves especially.”

Key Background

McCarthy controls a razor-thin majority in the House, and he was elected speaker earlier this year only after making promises to hardliners like Gaetz. Gaetz had been threatening to oust McCarthy for weeks if he brought forward a bill that relied on Democrats to pass and avoid a shutdown. Gaetz and a group of other far-right House Republicans, including members of the House Freedom Caucus, have spent weeks disrupting the congressional procedure required to fund the federal government for the next year. They’ve demanded cuts to federal programs and opposed additional military aid to Ukraine—a key point for many Democrats—which made a shutdown more likely. The hard-right Freedom Caucus proposed its own stopgap measure earlier this month that would have cut funding for all federal departments except the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense, but it failed to pass.