WATCH: Laughter Erupts on House Floor After Matt Gaetz Moved To Oust McCarthy As Speaker
Laughter could be heard on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday night after hardline Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) officially moved to vacate Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from his post.
Gaetz has long been a thorn in McCarthy’s side and will now need a majority of the House to vote in favor of his motion to vacate the speaker in order to remove him. Gaetz, whose populist, MAGA-infused brand of politics has made him a deeply polarizing figure and target of scorn from within his own party.
“If the Democrats want to own Kevin McCarthy, they can have him, because one thing I’m at peace with is when we stand here a week from now, I won’t own Kevin McCarthy anymore. He won’t belong to me. So if the Democrats want to adopt him, they can adopt him,” Gaetz told reporters immediately after his floor speech.
In order for McCarthy to keep his job, he would need to hold onto almost all of his GOP members given the Republicans’ slim majority. The New York Times explained on Tuesday, “The Republicans’ slim majority means Mr. McCarthy has little chance of surviving without at least some help from Democrats. They could vote against Mr. McCarthy’s removal, vote “present” — neither yes or no — or skip the process entirely to lower the threshold of votes he needs to survive.”
McCarthy could possibly bypass a vote on Gaetz’s motion by tabling it with a majority vote of the House. If Gaetz is successful in forcing a vote to vacate it will be the first time in over a century and uncharted territory for the deeply divided Republican Party.
The laughter on the House floor after Gaetz spoke reportedly came from Democrats. Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman noted on Twitter, “The Democratic side of the House erupted in laughter as Gaetz left the floor.”
No doubt, many Democratic members of the House are glad to see the GOP’s legislative agenda derailed by infighting, although paralysis in the House could mean another shutdown as the government is currently only running on temporary funding.
Conservative Republican Tom McClintock (R-CA) blasted Gaetz’s nihilistic politics on Monday saying he “cannot conceive of a more counterproductive and self-destructive course” than the one Gaetz is on. McClintock warned that Gaetz’s move could actually work to empower Democrats in the House:
The supreme irony is that this is being initiated by self-described conservatives. Do they honestly believe that when the Democrats side with them to remove a Republican speaker, they will then side with them to name a more conservative replacement? Of course not. The Democrats will certainly recruit the most liberal Republicans to establish a left-of-center coalition to run the House. This is exactly what happened in California in 1994. A coalition speaker will move the administration of the House sharply to the left and effectively end the Republican House majority that the people elected in 2022.
Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.
