‘That Is a Stunner’: Cable News Networks Shocked By Historic Ouster of Kevin McCarthy

When the gavel finally came down, making the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as Speaker of the House official, cable news had a new historic moment on their hands.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) followed through on his threat to move to vacate McCarthy, and after a failure to table the motion, the votes came down to a narrow margin: 216 in favor of ousting McCarthy, 210 against.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper, after explaining the math, called the vote a “resounding defeat” for McCarthy, also stating, “For the first time in the history of the United States, the Speaker of the House has been removed.” Before turning to Manu Raju, CNN chief congressional correspondent and new host of Inside Politics Sunday, Tapper noted the “devastating day for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who told reporters that the 15 rounds he went through of balloting in January taught him how to govern. Apparently not so much.” Raju also called the vote “historic” and described the internal battles in the GOP Republican conference:

Given the opposition within his right flank, he knew full well that a handful of members could upset his plans at any given time on any party line vote. He had initially calculated to try to align themselves with those members on the far right, but at times when simply needing to do the basic essence of governing, whether it’s raising the national debt limit or keeping the government open, he needed Democratic support. There’s a Democratic Senate and a Democratic White House. That is something that those members on the far right of his conference simply would not accept, which is why he has met this fate.

On MSNBC, Deadline White House host Nicolle Wallace was left nearly speechless, but managed: “Just, wow.” Political analyst Ali Vitali had more information from her sources at the Capitol:

I can tell you from our team in the chamber, McCarthy has a smile on his face. He was waiting for them to gavel. And I think in the next few minutes, we’ll start seeing members come down these stairs, and we can start getting some actual reaction to the fact that many of these members unwillingly on the Republican side were a part of making history today, as eight Republicans voted with all Democrats who stood in unity to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy. And this is despite Republican members calling around to some handful of House Democrats, in the words of one source to me, begging them to help save McCarthy’s job. McCarthy himself was not part of those entreaties, as far as we know. But the fact that his allies were doing it for him and it still landed here is stunning.

Fox News host Neil Cavuto recognized the impact of the moment, saying “That is a stunner.” He continued:

You have never seen what you see unfolding now in the well of the House in American history -– a speaker essentially kicked out of his job. We don’t know the breakdown of the Democrats and Republicans or if any Democrats at all had voted to keep Kevin McCarthy in that position. We do know here that this holds, 216 enough to say that Kevin McCarthy will step down.

Watch the videos above via CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.