Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Fox News/Getty.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy lost his job today in an unprecedented vote. Fox News. Eight Republicans, led my Representative Matt Gaetz, joined all present Democrats to oust McCarthy 218-210. McCarthy was barely elected to the position, after 15 rounds, this January. McCarthy was never popular among the right wing of the Republican Party but the final straw was his deal with the Democrats to fund the government. Doing so spelled doom for McCarthy as Gaetz and eight other Republicans voted against him. McCarthy has already announced he will not run again for the Speaker of the House.
My Comment:
Wow, a lot can change in just a couple of days. I had assumed that Matt Gaetz and his threats to remove Kevin McCarthy were a bunchy of sound and fury signifying little to nothing. I was wrong. Just a couple of days later and McCarthy is gone for good and we will have a new Speaker of the House soon.
McCarthy was never popular among the MAGA wing of the party. Indeed, he was barely confirmed in the first place and he had to cut a pretty big deal to get the support to do so. Unfortunately for McCarthy he didn't actually stay to the terms of the deal.
Cutting a deal with Democrats to keep the government funded though? That was a huge mistake. It absolutely infuriated not only the members of congress that he cut the deal with but the party base as well. Everyone was mad about it besides the members of the uniparty.
What people wanted was for McCarthy to use his considerable leverage to extract some kind of concessions from the Democratic Party. The party is totally out of control, the border is completely open and the justice department is persecuting the top candidate for President. McCarthy was, apparently, fine with all of that. He absolutely refused to do anything about it and now he's gone.
The biggest loser here is probably Ukraine though. Like I wrote yesterday, it's going to be very difficult to get a funding bill through congress now. McCarthy was generally pro-Ukraine and there is no guarantee that the next speaker will be. And even if the next one is, it's going to be very difficult to cut a deal with Democrats to get Ukraine funding given that the same thing that happened to McCarthy will probably happen to them. More likely a vote for Ukraine funding won't even be allowed to come to a vote, and that assumes that the drama of picking a new speaker ends anytime soon. It might be difficult to get a speaker that all sides can agree too.
As to who is going to replace McCarthy, it's a very open question. I know Donald Trump's name has been floated, and doing so would fix a lot of problems, but I don't see that happening. Though a non-member of the house can indeed serve as Speaker, it's never happened. Then again, a house speaker has never been removed from office like this either.
Other candidates include Steve Scalise, who is a hero to the right after surviving an assassination attempt by a crazed Bernie Sanders supporters, and Lee Zeldin, who isn't in the house anymore. There are probably a lot more names but those three, Trump, Scalise and Zeldin are the ones I have heard of the most.
One thing is for sure, Matt Gaetz is not going to be the one that gets it. Gaetz burned a lot of bridges with the Republican Party and there is no way that any Democrats are going to vote for him. There are rumors that Gaetz himself will be kicked out of congress due to his actions and I honestly wouldn't be surprised.
I do have to say that it's funny that the Democrats kind of stabbed McCarthy in the back. He cut a deal with them to pass the funding bill but the second he needed their help to stay as Speaker they betrayed him. Not a single Democrat voted to help McCarthy.
I don't think the Democrats should do a victory lap here though. The next speaker is not going to be willing to work with them the way Kevin McCarthy is. And it's very possible the next speaker will be willing to play hardball. They are still banking on the idea that any government shutdown would be blamed on Republicans but polling already says any shutdown will be blamed on Joe Biden. This isn't a win for Democrats and they would have been much smarter to try and keep McCarthy in power...
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