Many Republicans are fuming at their colleague Matt Gaetz for dragging the House through another contentious battle over leadership with a motion to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
A vote on a motion to table – or delay – the motion to vacate will come up at 1:30 Monday afternoon.
McCarthy has the support of around 200 members of his 222-seat majority, and at least six GOP members have committed to voting against him. There’s no suggestion that Democrats could step in to help McCarthy – Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has reportedly instructed his caucus to vote to oust the speaker.
The pro-McCarthy faction is groaning about Gaetz’s ‘personal’ attacks on the speaker and claim he is thwarting the House’s agenda on passing spending bills.
Many Republicans are fuming at their colleague Matt Gaetz for dragging the House through another contentious battle over leadership with a motion to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy .
Gaetz upon leaving the conference meeting would not say whether he believed his motion would succeed
‘It has everything to do with Matt Gaetz putting Matt Gaetz above the United States,’ Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., told reporters after leaving an all-conference meeting.
‘The only word I can describe for [him] is either he’s either a fool or a liar.’
‘Gaetz is using the American people, as pawns in his narcissistic game of charades, and I think we’ve had enough,’ said Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla.
Gaetz said that he would launch a motion to vacate if McCarthy moved a continuing resolution, CR, or a stopgap spending bill that continues funding at current levels while the House works in individual spending bills and tries to push through deeper cuts.
The House now has another six weeks to push through another eight single-subject spending bills and then negotiate with the Senate before a November 17 deadline.
On Monday, he accused Gaetz of cutting a ‘secret side deal’ with President Biden on Ukraine funding.
Gaetz upon leaving the conference meeting would not say whether he believed his motion would succeed. Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who will vote for the motion to oust McCarthy, said he believed it would ‘probably’ fail.
‘We’re just, you know, fiddling while Rome burns,’ he told reporters, tearing into the nation’s $33 trillion in debt and Congress’ passing of a continuing resolution over the weekend.
Burchett said he had a conversation with the speaker last week.
‘The last thing he said was, I really want to be speaker and I think that sums up the whole thing,’ the congressman said. ‘We should be bigger than that. We should accomplish some things. It’s not about one person. It’s about our country.’
Some Republicans noted that if the House is thrust into chaos without a speaker, the clock would tick down toward a government shutdown – with only six weeks to go before the new deadline to fund the government in fiscal year 2024.
‘The motion to vacate put forth yesterday is nothing more than a tantrum aimed at personal and political gain,’ said Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio.
‘He is a diabolical saboteur who has been single-mindedly focused on destabilizing the Republican majority for nine month,’ added Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D.
Leaving a conference meeting, most insisted there would be a rules change after the speaker’s drama is over so that one single member cannot force a vote to vacate the speakership.
Under rules agreed to by McCarthy during the frenzied speaker’s race, only one House member is needed to bring up a motion to vacate. Gaetz has now said he will continue to force the motion to vacate until McCarthy is ousted.
‘This is not a sensible standard,’ said Issa. ‘We need to make a real change to limit the chaos,’ added Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y.