Matt Gaetz claims he's ready to vote to boot Kevin McCarthy
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) suggested on Tuesday that he is ready to move forward with a vote to remove House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the chair — and dared House Democrats to provide the votes to stop him from doing so, reported Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman.
"GAETZ just essentially said on the House floor that he will file a motion to boot McCarthy out of the speakership," said Sherman. "He said Democrats will have an opportunity to hold McCarthy responsible for his record over the last 8 months. And he said we'll see if Democrats bail him out."
This comes as tensions reach a head between House Republican leadership and the far-right Freedom Caucus as they try to hammer out funding to keep the government open, with a shutdown looming in a matter of days.
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Gaetz has for months been threatening to call a vote to "vacate the chair," ramping it up especially after McCarthy agreed to a deal with President Joe Biden to prevent a default on the national debt in the spring.
Under the rules that McCarthy agreed to as a condition of securing the votes for Speaker, any individual Republican can call for such a motion — and he would struggle to defeat such a vote, as Republicans hold only a barebones 5-seat majority in the House, far fewer than the number of far-right lawmakers who have questioned McCarthy's leadership.
"The one thing I agree with my Democrat (sic) colleagues on is that for the last eight months, this House has been poorly led," said Gaetz in a two-minute speech. "And we own that. We have to do something about it. And you know what? My Democrat (sic) colleagues will have an opportunity to do something about that too. And we will see if they bail out our failed speaker."
As the chaos unfolds in the House, the Senate has reached a bipartisan deal to avert a government shutdown, but it remains unclear if McCarthy has any plans to take up such a measure if it passes.
Watch the moment in the video below or at the link here.
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