By now, it’s no secret that Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz is not fond of Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. And Gaetz is more determined than ever to oust the sitting speaker.
According to Gaetz, McCarthy has always been too concerned with the Democratic agenda and never loyal enough to either his own party or constituents.
And McCarthy’s actions and words from the past week only seem to prove this more, at least to Gaetz.
If you didn’t already know, Congress very narrowly avoided a government shutdown last week due to neither side being able to agree on spending legislation.
According to House conservatives, this could have been solved weeks ago, but the House waited too long to vote on the bills and so caused unneeded chaos.
On Friday, McCarthy was running out of options, so he proposed a conservative plan to at least temporarily solve the problem, planning to fund the government but enact steep spending cuts to many agencies as well as add more provisions for a stricter border.
Naturally, Dems were not for it. And thanks to at least 21 Republicans who didn’t think the cuts were enough, the bill didn’t pass.
So McCarthy switched sides, so to speak, choosing to appease the Dems a bit more. This bill would keep agencies funded at current levels until mid-November and provide extensive relief for disaster relief.
The bill passed with overwhelming majorities in both chambers.
But to Gaetz, this did nothing but prove that McCarthy was more willing to work with Democrats and give in to their wishes than his own party. And naturally, he’s not happy with that.
So he announced that this week, we would be filing a “motion to vacate,” essentially a motion to remove McCarthy from his seat of leadership. And according to Gaetz, he has enough support to make it happen.
“The only way Kevin McCarthy is Speaker of the House at the end of this coming week is if Democrats bail him out.”
But McCarthy doesn’t seem worried about Gaetz’s threats, at least not at the moment.
