Some people get excited for pre-season football, some get amped when there’s a showdown coming in the United States House of Representatives. If a serious threat to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) grip on his position by members of his own party is your idea of a thriller, this is the Mediaite story for you!
Ever since McCarthy won the speakership on his 15th vote in January, he has been called the “weakest” Speaker of the House since struggling to win over the most hard-right members of the Republican conference. The reason for that is the compromise that allows one member to “move to vacate” McCarthy from the speakership and put the vote to the rest of the House. While the MAGA Republicans in Congress have been making this threat in the months since, CNN’s Manu Raju and Melanie Zanona reported over the weekend that the threat is very much on the table as the House prepares to figure out how to keep the country funded while making the majority of representatives happy. Raju and Zanona laid out McCarthy’s options:
Either side with conservative hardliners and set up a major clash with the White House or cut a deal with Democrats and pass the spending bill by a two-thirds majority, a threshold that would allow them to approve the bill without having to adopt a rule first but could force McCarthy to give more concessions to Democrats.
But if he works with Democrats to circumvent his far-right, McCarthy risks enraging the very members who have threatened to push for a vote to oust him from the speakership.
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) told CNN:
The challenge for McCarthy, and I’ll be real honest with you, is that if he works with the Democrats, obviously, the Democrats are not going to do it for free. They want something. So, it’s going to be a compromise — one of those really bad words in Washington for some reason. Then you’re going to find a resolution introduced on the floor to vacate the chair.
McCarthy’s biggest problem is that the GOP majority is small, very small, 222 Republicans to 212 Democrats, with the simple majority sitting at 218 votes assuming everyone is present and casts a vote. To get the GOP over the threshold, McCarthy faces a growing number of MAGA reps who have some very specific demands — demands that could kibosh his chances of passing a spending bill.
Among those demands: defunding the investigations into former President Donald Trump, voting to move forward with an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, the end of funding for Ukraine, more funding and security at the southern border.
But, if Republicans have the majority, even a simple one, what’s the problem? The handful of “moderate” Republican reps in Congressional districts that went for Biden in 2022, constituents who would likely not support these MAGA demands, putting their re-election in jeopardy and the GOP majority in the House. A conundrum, to say the least.
McCarthy told Breitbart on Friday that he was not going give into the demand for an impeach inquiry without near-full support of the House GOP, telling Matthew Boyle: “[I]f we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person.”
Watch the video above via CNN.
The post Threat to ‘Move to Vacate’ McCarthy as Speaker Is Very Real, Reports CNN’s Manu Raju and Melanie Zanona first appeared on Mediaite.