House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) could see his term as House Speaker brought to a crushing end this week following Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) latest move against the California lawmaker.
BREAKING: Rep. Matt Gaetz has filed a motion to vacate the chair against Speaker Kevin McCarthy pic.twitter.com/vkJcgjD6qA
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) October 2, 2023
Gaetz made good on his promise to oust McCarthy as Speaker of the House when he filed a motion on Monday to vacate the position.
“Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause two A1 of Rule nine, I rise to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges of House,” Gaetz said on the House floor. “Declaring the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives to be vacant. Resolved that the office of Speaker of the House Representatives is hereby declared to be vacant.”
The Florida lawmaker accused McCarthy of failing to fulfill any of the promises he made while he was running for the seat of Speaker of the House.
For some people, like @SpeakerMcCarthy, policy failures are recast as personal because their own failures are personally embarrassing to them. pic.twitter.com/TzuCWxF3co
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) October 2, 2023
“I can cite to you the specific elements of house rules that have been violated,” Gaetz said. “Kevin McCarthy agreed to a rule that we would have 72 hours to read legislation. He blew past that. Kevin McCarthy agreed to a rule that we would not put anything over a hundred million dollars on the suspension agenda so that it couldn’t be amended. He blew past that. Kevin McCarthy agreed to the Hastert rule —which is that you would never use the Democrats to roll a majority of the majority. On the last Ukraine supplemental, 101 Republicans voted for it.117 Republicans voted against it… I’m pointing to specific things that Kevin agreed to that he hasn’t complied with.”
It’s not clear if Gaetz has secured enough votes to unseat McCarthy. Gaetz, however, vowed to bring up the motion as many times as possible until he gets McCarthy removed.
JUST IN: Representative Matt Gaetz speaks out after he files motion to vacate against Speaker Kevin McCarthy, says Democrats can adopt him if they want.
“If the Democrats want to own Kevin McCarthy, they can have it.”
“Because one thing I'm at peace with is when we stand here a… pic.twitter.com/2B5q8PgXtO
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 3, 2023
“If you lose this vote, will you continue to do this?” a reporter asked Gaetz. “And are you worried about throwing this institution into chaos, paralyzing an institution that your party runs?”
Forcing a few votes and filing a few motions is not chaos.
If we continue to have $2 Trillion annual deficits, you won’t know real chaos until you see where the Swamp and this uniparty are bringing us. pic.twitter.com/BRUTpDtRog
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) October 2, 2023
Gaetz maintained that Congress governing as a “uni-party—not his action— is what is throwing everything into chaos.
“Yeah,” Gaetz said. “Like I’ve said, it took speaker McCarthy 15 votes to become the speaker. So until I get to 14 or 15 I don’t think I’m being any more dilatory than he was.”
