Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., on Sunday House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Congress voted to avoid a shutdown just hours before a deadline this week, saying it would file a resolution to oust U.S. President Donald Trump.
“I intend to file a motion to resign this week against Speaker McCarthy,” Getz said in a statement. CNN’s “State of the Union” interview. “I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to go with credible new leadership.”
After the Senate and House voted Saturday night to pass a short-term bill to fund the government through November, Getz appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” and confirmed he would soon file a resolution to vacate the speakership. 17.
In response to Getz’s announcement, McCarthy said, “That’s nothing new. … He’s been trying to do that since the moment I ran for office. … Yes, I will survive. You know, it’s a personal thing for Matt.
McCarthy added that Getz “seems more interested in securing television interviews than doing anything else.” “So be it, bring it on, let’s get it over with and start governing.”
The short-term funding bill authorizes additional disaster relief money and buys Congress more time to reach a full-year funding deal. However, aid to Ukraine is not included. McCarthy removed that provision from the bipartisan Senate bill, saying it would have to be considered separately at a later date.
Under rules adopted earlier this year, any Republican lawmaker can call for a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, and it must be voted on within two legislative days.
It’s not clear that Getz has enough votes to oust McCarthy. If all Democrats were to vote to remove him, he would need at least five Republican members of Congress to vote with him.
“I don’t think he cares about that,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., said of McCarthy. “Because he doesn’t believe that 218 people are going to go up to the floor and punish a bipartisan bill to keep the government open. … I don’t know how anybody can handle that.
“There can’t be five people out of 435 — I don’t know what percentage that is — completely hijacking our chamber and therefore hijacking our government. The will of the people in America must prevail,” he said in an interview on Sunday. “Otherwise, the system and democracy will not work.”
Rep. Rep. Larry Bookshon, R-Ind., slammed Getz’s plan and called him a “charlatan.”
“He’s threatening to use at least 200 Democratic votes to impeach Speaker McCarthy. He’s reaching out to them for votes! Is the hypocrisy lost on anyone? At least 200 House votes will vote for the Speaker, including me,” Indiana Republican Party Wrote in XThe social media platform was formerly known as Twitter.
Before Congress passed the bill Saturday, McCarthy announced he would reject Republican demands for spending cuts and policy provisions on immigration in order to hold a quick House vote on a “clean” stopgap bill. His announcement came a day after a group of conservative rebels led by Getz blocked House Republicans’ short-term funding bill to keep the government open.
McCarthy said Saturday that he had no choice but to drop the Republicans’ demands.
A vote by 21 conservative rebels on Friday to block House Republicans’ 30-day funding bill last week left them with no plan to avoid a shutdown. Insurgents have demanded the House pass all 12 appropriations bills with steep spending cuts before they can negotiate funding with the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Republicans who joined Gaetz last week in voting for McCarthy’s short-term funding bill include Reps. Andy Biggs, Eli Crane and Paul Gosar. of Arizona; Lauren Bobert and Ken Buck of Colorado; Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia; Tim Burchett and Andy Ogles, both of Tennessee; Alex Mooney, running for Senate in West Virginia; Matt Rosenthal, running for Senate in Montana; and Nancy Mays, who represents a swing district in South Carolina. All these lawmakers also voted against the continuing resolution passed on Saturday night.
Getz threatened to fire McCarthy if he worked with Democrats to fund the government with a clean continuing resolution.
“Speaker McCarthy made a deal with House conservatives in January, and since then he’s engaged in a shameful, repeated, material violation of that deal. This deal he made with Democrats to really blow away the spending walls we’re putting up is really the last straw,” Gets said. said in the State of the Union.
He also accused McCarthy of making a deal with Democrats to pass the CR without Ukraine funding. “I learned overnight that Kevin McCarthy made a secret deal with the Democrats on Ukraine,” Gates said. “So he turns around and makes a secret deal after he gets Republicans to vote for the Ukraine bailout resolution and says we’re going to freeze the Senate on Ukraine.”
President Joe Biden, asked during a press conference from the White House on Sunday whether he believed McCarthy would keep his word on an agreement, said: “We made one about Ukraine. So we’ll find out.
During the presser, Biden would not comment on whether Democrats should support McCarthy’s speech, promising Americans that Ukraine funding would be provided and saying he believed “this experience for the speaker was one of personal revelation.”
However, he expressed some hope when asked how many Republicans he thought would support his vacating motion, which required 218 votes to pass. “If you host this show next week, if Kevin McCarthy is still Speaker of the House, he will serve as the Democrats want. He will work for the Democratic Party,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “The only way Kevin McCarthy will be Speaker this weekend is if the Democrats bail him out.”
McCarthy last month emboldened his opponents to file a “motion to vacate” the speaker’s chair and try to oust him in a closed-door House GOP meeting. when At the meeting, McCarthy told House Republicans, “If you want to file a motion to vacate, file a f—ing motion,” according to two sources in the chamber who confirmed the comments to NBC News.
McCarthy’s comments came in response to members, including Getz, who threatened to oust him as speaker if he did not follow through on their demands, such as putting some bills on the floor and not passing a stopgap bill to prevent a government shutdown. At the end of the month.
House Ways and Committee Chairman Rep. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., said in an interview Sunday on Fox News Business that Getz’s effort to oust McCarthy from the speakership was a “waste of time.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who served as House speaker before McCarthy assumed the role, echoed Smith’s comments.
“Other than being on TV and raising money on the Internet, you’re wasting your time on that guy because he has no power in the House of Representatives,” Pelosi said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DNY., said she would “absolutely” vote for a motion to vacate, while making it clear she would not vote for a Republican to replace McCarthy as speaker.
“My vote at the beginning of this term for Speaker of the House was for Hakeem Jeffries, and I don’t want to vote for a Republican Speaker of the House,” Ocasio-Cortez said on “State of the Union.”
“But I believe the Republican convention is about determining their own leadership and dealing with their own problems,” he added. “But it’s not the Democrats who are saving the Republicans, but especially them.”
He said Democrats might be willing to negotiate with McCarthy if he was in danger of losing his speakership, but he didn’t believe they would “give away votes for free.”
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