Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has announced that he will file a motion to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), setting up another intra-party fight.
On the House floor on Oct. 2, Mr. Gaetz said President Joe Biden has been taking Mr. McCarthy’s “lunch money.”
“Speaker McCarthy made an agreement with House conservatives in January,” he said.
“And since then, he has been in brazen repeated material breach of that agreement. This agreement he made with Democrats to really blow past a lot of the spending guardrails we had set up is a last straw.”
Mr. Gaetz also claimed, “Overnight I learned that Kevin McCarthy had a secret deal with Democrats on Ukraine.
‘Yellow Brick Road’
During his House floor speech decrying the big spending, Mr. Gaetz denounced what he called a “yellow brick road paved by Speaker McCarthy.”The House on Sept. 29 failed to pass a CR as 21 Republicans, including Mr. Gaetz, joined Democrats to reject a one-month funding bill that would have included border security measures.
The 165-page bill, called the “Continuing Appropriations and Border Security Enhancement Act, 2024,” was released on Sept. 29 and would have reduced funding by almost 8.13 percent for almost all 12 appropriations—bringing the total amount of spending to $1.59 trillion. It would have run through Oct. 31.
These appropriations are Agriculture-Food and Drug Administration; Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies; Department of Defense; Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies; Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act; Department of Homeland Security; Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies; Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies; legislative branch; Military Construction-Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies; Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies.
The only ones that would have been exempt from the almost 8.13 percent cut would be the Defense Department, Veterans Affairs Department, and disaster relief.
The legislation included border security measures such as resuming border wall construction, which President Biden paused on Jan. 20, 2021—the day he took office—in a repudiation of former President Donald Trump’s hardline border and immigration policies.
The CR did not include funding for Ukraine amid its war with Russia.
On Sept. 28, 117 Republicans voted against Ukraine aid, while 101 Republicans joined all 210 Democrats to pass a bill that would provide $300 million in assistance to the Eastern European country.
During his appearance on “State of the Union,” Mr. Gaetz announced his intention.
“I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week,” he said. “I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy.”
Mr. Gaetz cited Mr. McCarthy’s going back and forth on issues and remarked that he didn’t keep his promises.
“Look, the one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. He lied to Biden. He lied to House conservatives. He had appropriators marking to a different number altogether,” he said.
“And the reason we were backed up against shutdown politics is not a bug of the system, it’s a feature,” Mr. Gaetz said.
“Kevin McCarthy’s goal was to make multiple contradictory promises, to delay everything, back us up against shutdown politics and, at the end of the day, blow past the spending guardrails he agreed to.”
‘I’ll Survive’
Mr. McCarthy said Mr. Gaetz’s wanting to get the gavel out of his hand is “nothing new” and that he has sought to do so since Mr. McCarthy ran for speaker in January, eventually winning after 15 rounds of balloting and many concessions to the hardline Freedom Caucus, including lowering the threshold for putting forth a motion to vacate to just one member.“I'll survive. You know, this is personal with Matt,” Mr. McCarthy said. “Matt voted against the most conservative ability to protect our border, secure our border.
“He’s more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something. He wanted to push us into a shutdown, even threatening his own district with all the military people there who would not be paid only because he wants to take this motion.
“So be it. Bring it on. Let’s get over with it. Let’s start governing again.”
“Retreat is never a strategy to win anything,” Mr. Gaetz said in his House floor speech.
Whether House Democrats will come to Mr. McCarthy’s rescue is to be determined. One possible scenario, of many arising from wide speculation, is that Mr. McCarthy will support $24 billion in supplemental Ukraine assistance the Biden administration has requested. Additionally, Democrats might not want to be seen as siding with Mr. Gaetz, though they could vote “present.”
Following Mr. Gaetz’s speech, Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) said that a motion to vacate would “derail” the appropriations process and the impeachment inquiry of President Biden.
As to when exactly Mr. Gaetz will file the motion to vacate, as he said in that speech: “Stay tuned.”
