House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted in a 216-210 vote Tuesday, after Rep. Matt Gaetz filed a motion to vacate the chair — marking the first time a speaker has been removed this way in American history.
Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., was named the speaker pro-tempore after McCarthy was removed. McHenry called for a recess so the parties could meet and decide what to do next.
All three Utah Republican congressmen voted to keep McCarthy as speaker.
Before the vote to vacate, McCarthy allies tried to kill the resolution, but Democrats blocked that measure Tuesday, along with 11 Republicans, in a 208-218 vote.
After the government was pushed to the brink of a shutdown Saturday, McCarthy brought a resolution to the floor that passed primarily with Democratic votes. He immediately faced blowback from some of the more conservative members of his conference.
Still, McCarthy said he stood by his decision to work with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown saying, “At the end of the day, if I have to lose my job over it, so be it.”
He had offered several continuing resolutions over the past few weeks, including some that cut spending and increased funds for border security, but there were not enough votes in his conference to pass those bills because of infighting in the Republican conference.
He has led the House Republicans since his election as House Minority Leader after the 2018 election. He was elected speaker after 15 rounds of voting in January. Since then he has faced several calls for his removal from the right wing of the Republican conference.
Prior to the final vote, House Rules Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said on the House floor that a small group of Republicans are “willing to plunge this body into chaos and this country into uncertainty for reasons that only they understand. I certainly don’t.”
Gaetz responded to this by saying, “Chaos is Speaker McCarthy. Chaos is somebody who we cannot trust with their word.”
Now House Republicans are faced with the question: If not McCarthy, then who?
There was word some Republicans may attempt to remove Gaetz from the Republican Conference after the vote, according to reporting from Punchbowl News.
Earlier in the day, when McCarthy was asked if he was confident he would remain Speaker of the House, McCarthy told reporters he was.
McCarthy said Gaetz had planned to target his speakership for a long time and “he would have done it if we were in shutdown or not,” adding that Gaetz's attacks are personal.
Gaetz previously accused McCarthy of filing an ethics complaint against him.
To have kept his role as speaker, McCarthy could only spare five Republican votes.
Punchbowl News reported that the speaker made a late night call to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a last-ditch effort to save his gavel.
When asked about the call, McCarthy told reporters that he talks to Jeffries, D-N.Y., about “a lot of things” on a weekly basis, which recently included a conversation about Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and the fire alarm he set off on Capitol Hill an hour before the House was set to vote on a stop-gap bill to fund the government until mid-October.
“I’ve always said I’m going to treat Hakeem the way I wanted to be treated. I think you’ve seen that everything doesn’t have to be political,” McCarthy said.
If McCarthy does need votes, Democrats haven’t shown a willingness to rescue McCarthy.
“We encourage our Republican colleagues who claim to be more traditional to break from the extremists. End the chaos, end the dysfunction, (and) end the extremism,” Jeffries told reporters on Tuesday morning after giving his remarks on the floor. “We are ready, willing and able to work together with our Republican colleagues but it is on them to join us to move the Congress and the country forward.”
After many meetings Tuesday morning, where Democrats voiced distrust for the speaker, House Democrats came to a consensus to not save McCarthy. Even the centrist Democrats in the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus agreed to follow Jeffries in voting to oust McCarthy.
The White House has stayed out of the conversation about McCarthy’s future as leader in the House.
“We do not get involved when it comes to leadership conversations,” said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a press briefing on Monday. “That is something for House Democrats, House Republicans — in this particular instance — to figure out.”
As the Deseret News previously reported, hardline Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., aren’t too happy to lend a hand and “give up votes for free.” Earlier, some lawmakers contemplated voting “present,” instead of “yes” or “no,” to avoid actively helping McCarthy. This would have benefitted the speaker by lowering the threshold of votes he would need to keep his job.
Contributing: Suzanne Bates