KEVIN MCCARTHY WAS axed as Speaker of the US House of Representatives last night in an unprecedented move that signals deep divisions in the Republican Party.

The dramatic events mark the first time in the House’s 234-year history that a speaker was ousted.

Democrats wanted McCarthy gone but it was one of his own party members, Matt Gaetz, who forced the vote to happen.

Gaetz, a Trump loyalist from Florida, and a number of other far-right Republicans accused McCarthy of a string of broken promises and were furious at his cooperation with Democrats.

Gaetz gambled that he could oust McCarthy with just a few Republicans, helped by Democrats who wanted to see McCarthy gone after he recently opened a highly politicised impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

The effort succeeded, by 216 votes to 210, plunging the Republican-controlled House into chaos.

McCarthy’s ousting came just days after the House and Senate passed a measure to avert a costly government shutdown — both with big bipartisan majorities — by extending federal funding through to mid-November.

Conservatives were furious, seeing their chances dashed for forcing massive budget cuts.

They accused McCarthy of a flip-flop, saying he’d promised an end to hastily prepared stopgap legislation, hammered out with the support of the opposition, and a return to budgeting through the committee process.

For their part, a number of Democrats labelled McCarthy as “untrustworthy”.

Congressional Progressive Caucus chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, a leading leftist, vowed to let Republicans “wallow in their pigsty of incompetence” rather than rescue the speaker.

McCarthy, who was only in the role for nine months, accused Gaetz of having a personal vendetta against him because he refused to intervene in a congressional investigation into Gaetz’s conduct.

The House ethics committee is leading an ongoing inquiry into Gaetz over allegations of sexual misconduct, including sex trafficking and sex with a minor, illicit drug use and misuse of campaign funds.

Matt Gaetz answers questions from members of the media earlier this week Jacquelyn Martin / AP/PA Images Jacquelyn Martin / AP/PA Images / AP/PA Images

Speaking after his ejection, McCarthy said: “I ended up being the 55th speaker of the House — one of the greatest honors. I loved every minute.

“And the one thing I will tell you is doing the right thing isn’t always easy, but it is necessary. I don’t regret standing up for choosing governance over grievance.”

Gaetz last night said: “The reason Kevin McCarthy went down today is because nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. [He] has made multiple contradictory promises, and when they all came due, he lost.”

Suffice to say, it’s a mess.

Regrets on both sides?

McCarthy’s ousting laid bare the chaotic levels of infighting among Republicans heading into the 2024 presidential election, with its likely candidate Donald Trump making history of his own as the only former or sitting president to face criminal indictment.

So, what does last night’s historic vote mean for the Republican Party and, indeed, the Democrats?

Larry Donnelly, The Journal’s political columnist, said both parties may live to regret ousting McCarthy despite their grievances with him.

“From the outset, it’s unexpected. I didn’t think this was going to happen, if you said to me a week ago this would happen I would have been very surprised.

Partly because I didn’t anticipate the Democrats voting en masse in agreement with Matt Gaetz, arguably the most radical and ethically-challenged member of the House Republicans.

Republican hardliners had tried doggedly to block McCarthy from getting the job back in January, forcing him to go through 15 rounds of votes until he finally made enough concessions to appease them and win approval.

McCarthy had such a narrow majority that his tenure as speaker was always “on shaky ground”, Donnelly explained.

“The reality is that the majority is so narrow that it made his position, ultimately, untenable. The big concession he had to make to get elected speaker was he had to say, ‘Look, just one person can make a motion to vacate the speakership’. So he was going to be on shaky ground from day one.”

‘A poisoned chalice’

Focus has now turned to who will replace McCarthy.

“It’s a poisoned chalice,” Donnelly stated, noting that whoever succeeds McCarthy will also have “really, really difficult” time dealing with the hard-right caucus.

“That person’s job is going to be pretty tough as well because he or she has to placate those people on the hard right,” Donnelly said. 

So it’s not a good day for the Republican Party, it’s not a good day for the Congress, it’s not a good day for American politics. It’s really a sad state of affairs.

The election of a new speaker could be contentious and involve several rounds of voting like it did for McCarthy back in January.

“The problem with trying to figure out the motives of some of those on the hard right is they actually don’t care.

“They really don’t care about the longer term political repercussions, but you would think that what they would do is, behind closed doors, reach some sort of settlement around who they can propose as the nominee, who is somebody that’s palatable to all sides,” Donnelly said. 

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise from Louisiana has emerged as the favourite to replace McCarthy, but the fact he is currently receiving treatment for cancer could complicate matters.

“Scalise for a whole range of reasons would seem to me to make the most sense, because Gaetz et al have said that he’s acceptable to them, and he’s reasonably well liked across the party,” Donnelly explained.

He added that someone like Patrick McHenry – who was put in place as acting speaker last night – could temporarily fill the role in a bid to appease different factions.

Patrick McHenry talks to reporters hours before Kevin McCarthy was ousted Mark Schiefelbein / AP/PA Images Mark Schiefelbein / AP/PA Images / AP/PA Images

“What could happen – and this has been floated because of the health issues – is the idea that they might appoint somebody as almost a caretaker speaker, for instance, Patrick McHenry… On the understanding that effectively Steve Scalise, once his cancer treatment has finished, he will take the job.”

Other names that have been mentioned in terms of a new speaker include House Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Elise Stefanik, a representative from New York.

Regardless of who is chosen, Republicans need to get a move on if they want to avoid a government shutdown.

“They need to get something in motion because the government’s only funded until November 17th. So they need to get something in train really quickly,” Donnelly said.

Election next year

In terms of the division in the Republican Party, Donnelly said it will be interesting to see how Trump will respond to last night’s developments.

The former president remains the favourite to get the Republican nomination for the presidential election next year.

“Trump is still odds-on favourite to be the nominee. How he plays this will be interesting to watch and, indeed, how the other Republican candidates for president react to all this will be interesting to see.”

McCarthy’s ousting is seen as a “big victory” for the hard-right, Donnelly said, but many people in the Republican Party don’t want to be aligned with Gaetz.

Let’s face it, he is still under investigation for sex trafficking. I mean, this is not someone they want to have as the de facto leader of the party on Capitol Hill. So I think some very difficult conversations are going to unfold.

“I think the extent to which Gaetz and that crowd have big, massive support among the grassroots, I’m just not so sure about that. I think they are kind of an isolated band. Of course, Republican presidential candidates are going to have to be responsive to them, but I think that they have a tricky tightrope to walk.”

Donnelly noted that some high-profile Republicans who have aligned themselves with Gaetz on certain issues supported McCarthy staying in the role.  

“I’ve been told this by people in Washington, that Gaetz is a pretty crazy guy.

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“Let’s put it this way – we know that people like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, not even the two of them went along with this, which tells you just how extreme Gaetz and the others are.”

Abortion

Trump recently received backlash from within his own party after he appeared to, once again, somewhat change his stance on abortion restrictions.

Last month Trump said the six-week abortion ban in Florida was “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake”, hitting out at Governor Ron DeSantis, who happens to be one of his presidential nominee rivals.

During the interview in question, on NBC’s Meet the Press, presenter Kristen Welker pressed Trump on whether or not he would support a 15-week federal ban on abortion, to which he replied, “I’m not going to say I would or I wouldn’t”.

Donald Trump pictured in court this week Seth Wenig, Pool / AP/PA Images Seth Wenig, Pool / AP/PA Images / AP/PA Images

Donnelly said Trump’s apparent move on the contentious issue is “fascinating”.

“One of the most notable things that Trump has done recently, we see him moving to the middle on a couple of things, in particular, on abortion. I find it fascinating.

“So I wonder just how he’s going to do all of this. And of course, he has to be mindful that Gaetz is one of his most enthusiastic backers. So it’s not a scenario that any of them really, I think, could have wanted.”

Trump — who is facing 91 felony charges and was in court in New York yesterday as a defendant in a civil fraud trial — berated Republicans on his social media platform for “always fighting among themselves”. Tellingly, though, he offered no support for McCarthy.

What about the Democrats?

Donnelly said it was interesting to watch the Democrats align themselves with Gaetz and other hardline Republicans on the McCarthy issue.

Yes, they had some valid frustrations with the speaker, but will they ultimately come to regret their decision?

“Did the Democrats make the right call politically speaking in voting with Matt Gaetz? I have a big question mark over that,” Donnelly said, wondering why they didn’t abstain instead.

They could have said, ‘This is an internal Republican matter’. They could have said, ‘Look at the infighting, we’re respecting the traditions of the House, they have the majority, this is an internal matter for them to decide. Look how dysfunctional they are, look how crazy they are. Meanwhile, we’re the grown ups.’

“That could have been, politically speaking, very effective,” Donnelly said.

“I think, even though she is not in leadership anymore, (former speaker) Nancy Pelosi was certainly minded that way. But I think the rank and file [Democrats] really gave it to them and said, ‘Look, we’re sick of McCarthy, we can’t deal with him anymore, we want him gone’.

“And so I think that’s why they went the way they did. Politically speaking, how that’s going to cut in the long term will be interesting to see.”

Donnelly said even though many Democrats didn’t trust McCarthy, he worked with them on preventing the government shutdown. His successor may not be as open to meeting them halfway on certain issues.

In a “worst case scenario” for the Democrats, the new speaker could be “somebody that the Democrats can’t deal with at all… somebody who won’t fund Ukraine, who won’t fund social spending, all of these sorts of things”.

“They could get somebody a lot worse than what they had – which was somebody who was distrustful and duplicitous lots of time – but, let’s face it, he did do a deal with Democrats to keep the government afloat, which I think was significant and it has cost him his job.

“It’s that old maxim, be careful what you wish for.”

Contains reporting from © AFP 2023