The civil war within the Republican Party became official this Monday. Matt Gaetz, far-right legislator and ally of Donald Trump, kept his word and presented the motion to force a vote and remove Kevin McCarthy from the presidency of the Lower House. His move comes as revenge because the speaker formulated a provisional financing project on Saturday to attract Democrats, as it happened, and became a key piece to avoid the financial closure of the government as of October 1 .
Gaetz had previously made a series of warnings in case he would present a project like that, until he made his threat concrete. This opens a process so that the highest position in the Lower House, which is also the third in the command ranks in the United States, is immediately put to a vote.
The Florida legislator opts for a rare, unusual type of punishment. Only two other ‘speakers’ have gone through a similar situation in the history of the Lower House. In no case did they manage to throw him out. The request of just one of the members can trigger this procedure, which requires a majority (218 votes) to achieve success.
“I have enough Republicans that, at this point next week, one of two things will happen. Either Kevin McCarthy will not be the speaker of the Lower House or he will be working to the satisfaction of the Democrats,” Gaetz told reporters once he introduced the motion. “I will be at peace with any of the results because the citizens of the United States deserve to know who governs them,” he stressed in his address.
McCarthy responded shortly on social media: “Let’s get to it.” According to his vision, “this is something totally inappropriate for the country and my only interest is that we do our job.” And, after regretting the obstacles that some have put in place since day one, he stated that “I want to win the vote and be able to finish the work”.
The House was in normal day-to-day proceedings with a brief but tense interruption when Gaetz took the step. Precisely at that moment McCarthy was not in the room. However, dozens of Democrats crowded into the hallway to watch the show. Shortly after, the session was canceled until this Tuesday. Based on deadlines, this situation must be resolved in two legislative days, although it seems that the conflict is going to last a long time.
“It is increasingly clear who the president of the House works for and it is not for the Republican group,” the ultra congressman insisted. He considered the trigger that the Democrats will throw him the lifeline to avoid the closure of the administration. He also denounced an alleged secret pact with President Joe Biden to continue financing Ukraine through another means, since the approved plan does not have money for Kyiv.
But McCarthy went to the extent of seeking the complicity of the other party because, on Friday night, 21 far-right legislators, with Gaetz at the helm, knocked down a very conservative provisional financing project with the excuse that they wanted something long-term.
For months, the Democratic opposition considered that McCarthy was kidnapped by the ultras, who used him as a victim of their blackmail. Hence, despite his initial refusal, he agreed to open an impeachment or political process against Biden without evidence, as reflected last Thursday in the first hearing. The witnesses proposed by the Republicans declared that, for now, there was nothing to hold on to.
That was the supposed price McCarthy paid for taking over the command deck. He had to overcome fifteen votes, something that had never happened, to achieve it, once Gaetz and company considered that his intimidation was going to bear fruit.
The president of the House is a victim of the poor results of the conservatives in the midterm elections, in November 2022. They believed they would win a large majority and it turned out to be very slim. Although I do not know how many followers will support the challenge, with the loss of less than a dozen votes and the punishment of the Democrats, McCarthy may lose office.
Many analysts believe that this would lead to chaos due to the lack of a leader and the more than notorious hostility between branches of the conservative party, agitated among themselves by the bellows of the worse the better for Trump’s interests.
Hence, it remains to be seen whether Democrats will help the House speaker keep his job. Although there are many who want to take a toll on him, and who announce that McCarthy must be fired due to his inability to lead his team, there are also those who make calculations about the profit that coming to his rescue would give them. The speaker said he did not know if the enemies would throw the float at him.
