How McCarthy could be kicked out of speaker chair in debt ceiling battle

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has had his eye on the speaker's chair for decades, but the latest debate over the debt ceiling could be what takes it away from him.

NBC News recalled one of the deals that McCarthy made with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who held back five far-right Republicans from supporting McCarthy in January. Gaetz demanded that the number of votes necessary to "vacate the chair," be changed, meaning remove McCarthy from the Speaker post.

"Gaetz or one of his allies now have the power to trigger a so-called “motion to vacate” if McCarthy cuts a debt deal with Biden and the Democrats that they feel is too liberal," NBC explained. "He was already one of four GOP lawmakers who voted against McCarthy’s debt ceiling package that narrowly passed the House 217-215 — with just one vote to spare."

Gaetz had just been elected when the last government shutdown unfolded. In that debate, it was Donald Trump who refused to sign off on raising the debt ceiling unless Congress funded his border wall. It became the largest government shutdown in American history and Republican resistance ultimately cost the economy $11 billion. Polls at the time showed 71 percent of Americans didn't think his "wall" was worth the shutdown fight. Only 34 percent of Americans blamed Democrats for the crisis, and 53 percent blamed Trump and Republicans. Political analysts at the time believed this was the reason Trump "blinked."

Many of the members in this congress weren't around during that debt ceiling debate, and even fewer were around for the debt ceiling crisis of 2011 and the shutdown in 2013 when then-President Barack Obama faced off against Republican lawmakers demanding that Obama agree to kill all funding for the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

This time around, Republicans are annoyed by the spending over the COVID-19 pandemic and the transportation bill. From the beginning of the year, Biden said that Social Security and Medicare cuts were off the table. While it took Republicans a few weeks to agree, they finally said that they'd support that stipulation.

"Gaetz and his camp believe they have the upper hand over McCarthy, said one Gaetz ally in Congress," NBC reported.

“He didn’t get taken off one committee, and he is right back in the news, and not in a negative light," the lawmaker said.

If Gaetz has the upper hand, it would also mean that Democrats have the upper hand. All Democrats would need is five moderate Republicans willing to support a clean debt-ceiling vote, and they could pass the bill. It would be easier for Democrats to come up with something they could give to five Republicans that would ultimately get passed by the Senate and signed by the president than it would for McCarthy to pass a bill with his extreme right members and get it through the Senate and signed by Biden.

NBC explained there was already blood in the water for McCarthy and the far right. Moderate Republicans are telling McCarthy he should just make a deal with Biden and the Senate instead of focusing on his Speaker seat.

“A four-seat majority by definition, is difficult. I didn’t like the single person to vacate rule,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told NBC. He represents one of 14 Republican House districts where Biden won in 2020. “I think the speaker can’t let this fact dominate though, and he seems to be playing this right."

Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) is the chairman of the so-called Republican Main Street Caucus, which purports to be pragmatic lawmakers. They want a deal for the 222 members that stops "out-of-control federal spending."

The problem is that the spending they take issue with helped the same Main Street businesses during the pandemic that Johnson's caucus claims to represent. It also helped the communities build better roads and bridges, which also created more jobs. It's unclear if Johnson and his caucus would be willing to call back that money from the businesses that got bailouts immediately.

Other Republican demands are for work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps, as PBS Newshour outlined in April. The Congressional Budget Office predicts it would apply to about 15 million Americans, but the Health and Human Services Department thinks there are millions more.

"People who picked up work, earned a small raise, or switched jobs are finding that those new incomes could soon cost them coverage," said the Newshour piece.

The cutoff amount is so low that it means people could end up paying more for their healthcare if they get just a 50-cent raise, the PBS report explained, using one family as an example.

“It just seems like the system is set up so that you don’t want to go back (to work) because you lose more than you gain,” 39-year-old mom Amy Shaw said. “It makes me not want to go and get my mammogram and my colonoscopy. I don’t even want to go to these appointments because it’s going to cost so much money.”

Still, Republicans think they can prevail against the Senate and the president.

“I think Kevin McCarthy will have a lot of latitude on the specifics. He won’t have as much latitude on the magnitude of the deal. Republicans believe that major action is needed now,” Johnson claimed.

Republicans have used the "credit card" analogy as an example in their press conferences over the debt ceiling. Republicans have said that when you charge too much on the card you can't just keep raising the limit, and cuts need to be made. Their counter-parts have questioned why Republicans are unwilling to pay the credit card bill in the first place.