McCarthy brushes off Matt Gaetz threat to oust him after for teaming up with Dems to avert shutdown
Chief GOP agitator Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) announced Sunday his intent to file a motion to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — but the California Republican brushed off the threat, saying “Bring it on.”
Gaetz has long been dangling the motion to vacate the motion over McCarthy’s head and indicated the breaking point was the speaker’s recent move to avert a government shutdown Saturday.
“I do intend to file a motion to vacate against speaker McCarthy this week,” Gaetz told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
“This agreement that he made with Democrats to really blow past a lot of the spending guardrails we’d set up is a last straw,” the right-wing firebrand continued.
“Overnight, I learned that Kevin McCarthy had a secret deal with Democrats on Ukraine. So as he was baiting Republicans to vote for a continuing resolution without Ukraine money… then turns around and makes a secret deal.”
Democrat leadership indicated Saturday that they expect an up or down vote on additional funding for Ukraine shortly after the House reconvenes.
McCarthy, however, struck a defiant tone Sunday and blamed Gaetz for tanking efforts to bolster the border and score other conservative victories.
“So be it. Bring it on. Let’s get over with it and let’s start governing,” McCarthy told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
“I’ll survive,” he added. “You know this is personal with Matt. Matt voted against the most conservative ability to protect our border. He’s more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something.”
“Bring it on. Let’s get over with it,” McCarthy added. “Gaetz is trying to work with Democrats, he’s reached out to Swalwell, AOC, and others. But if that’s the way we’re going to govern, I don’t think America is going to be successful.”
McCarthy and his Republican allies pitched a myriad of bills to avert a government shutdown featuring a range of spending cuts, border security, and other wishlist items.
But after enough GOP hard-liners rejected all iterations of those proposals, McCarthy pulled out a last-minute stopgap continuing resolution to keep the government open for 47 more days with disaster aid and no Ukraine funding.
That measure, which was presented to Democrats early Saturday with little time to review it and effectively had no strings attached, passed the House 335 to 91, with one Democrat and then only Republicans opposed.
Gaetz, himself, vowed to oppose basically any continuing resolution, or CR measure, to avert a government shutdown, instead demanding Congress pass the traditional 12 appropriations bills to keep the government’s lights on.
“You guys think I’m scared of a motion to vacate. Go f—ing ahead and do it. I’m not scared,” McCarthy reportedly dared his conference earlier this month.
McCarthy barely clinched the speaker’s gavel back in January after a historically unprecedented marathon 15 votes.
Back then, Republicans had a five-seat majority and McCarthy didn’t have a vote to spare. Gaetz had voted “present” at the time to help him.
Now, Republicans have a four-seat majority thanks to the resignation of Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Ut.)
Ironically, in order for his motion to vacate the chair to be successful, Gaetz will need to lean on Democrat support.
“I will make no deal with Democrats and concede no terms to them. I actually think Democrats should vote against Speaker McCarthy for free,” he said.
McCarthy agreed to lower the threshold to bring forward a motion to vacate to one vote during his grovel for the gavel. The motion will require a majority of votes to be successful.
It remains unclear if Democrats will back the bid to topple McCarthy.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Sunday urged her fellow Democrats to follow Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-Calif.) over how to handle the motion to vacate.
“Follow the leader,” she told CNN.
Despite his howling at McCarthy for backing a CR, Gaetz voted for similar bills under the Trump administration.
“I’m five years sober voting for continuing resolutions and I should note that during those years, President Trump was growing the economy,” he said.
Without a CR, the government would have shut down on Saturday at 11:59 pm during the start of fiscal year 2024 because Congress has not passed all 12 appropriations bills to fund the government.
Host Jake Tapper admonished Gaetz over some of his demands during government shutdown negotiations, including calls to slash funding for those investigating former President Donald Trump.
“That to me is the language is somebody who is looking for clicks and likes and Fox hits — not somebody who actually is trying to reduce the debt,” Tapper chided.
Gaetz dismissed the critique and underscored the mounting US debt, while decrying the congressional process that led to that.
The Florida Rep. remains a clear minority within the Republican conference, with many moderate members increasingly condemning his actions.
He is rumored to be mulling a future run for Florida governor.
At least one agitated House Republican is considering a push to expel Gaetz if he doesn’t get cleared by his ongoing ethics investigation, CNN reported.
In the meantime, McCarthy has sought to plow ahead with consideration of the remaining appropriations bills needed to fully fund the government.
House Republicans’ top-line funding numbers are at odds with what the White House and Democrat-controlled Senate have sought.
