Rep. Matt Gaetz on Monday moved to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy from the top House leadership post, offering a motion to vacate the chair on the House floor – a rare procedural move that can be used to force a vote to remove the speaker.

It’s not yet clear how the challenge to McCarthy will play out, but the effort represents the most serious threat to his speakership to date. A floor vote to oust McCarthy would require a majority to succeed.

“Bring it on,” the California Republican wrote on X shortly after the motion. Gaetz responded to the post with one of his own, writing, “Just did.”

The move marks a major escalation in tensions for a House GOP conference that has been mired in in-fighting and could be thrown into chaos if McCarthy is pushed out of the speakership. It comes as a bloc of House conservatives have continued to thwart McCarthy, voting against key priorities of GOP leadership and repeatedly throwing up roadblocks to the speaker’s agenda.

  • gregorum
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    1 year ago

    … in most predictable motion in Congressional history.

    • @KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Nah, a Biden impeachment attempt was even more predictable. Though they flat out said that was the plan so I don’t know if that counts.

    • FuglyDuck
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      1 year ago

      Pretty sure that award goes to “raises? Yes.” But this is a very close second

  • @SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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    261 year ago

    Any chance we could see mccarthy unseated and gaetz removed? That would be pretty fantastic to watch. Not great for the country, mind, as it would lead to another week or two of endless voting for a new speaker, but hilarious to watch nonetheless.

    • rynzcycle
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      221 year ago

      In a highly unprecedented move, Speaker McCarthy has opted for trial by combat…

  • donuts
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    251 year ago

    McCarthy called Gaetz’s bluff and now Gaetz doesn’t want to back down for fear of looking weak.

    I’m just happy to watch these traitorous little monkeys sling shit at each other.

    • uphillbothways
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      1 year ago

      He’s a can of Crisco with a cadaver’s face stretched across it. Can’t get a lot of range in the facial expressions when that’s what you’re working with.

  • IHeartBadCode
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    141 year ago

    Bickering like children and they think they can hold impeachment hearings on Biden? They can’t even function as a single political party much less navigate complexities like fact finding, legal investigative process, and case building.

    Gaetz has shown that the Republican party has gone so deep into political paranoia that they fear even each other and must resort to extreme measures like a motion to vacate to “test” ideological purity to one another. The GOP is crumbling but in its complete failure, it will provide a larger path for more extreme megalomaniac personas to invade what the GOP once was.

    All this does is ensure that the GOP further descends into madness.

    • @agent_flounder
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      81 year ago

      I hope you’re right because if they remain united, we are deeply fucked.

  • Chainweasel
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    61 year ago

    The more they fight amongst themselves the less damage they can do to the rest of us. Good for them.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    51 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    It comes as a bloc of House conservatives have continued to thwart McCarthy, voting against key priorities of GOP leadership and repeatedly throwing up roadblocks to the speaker’s agenda.

    McCarthy is expected to make a procedural move in an attempt to kill the measure to remove him as speaker, potentially as soon as Tuesday, several sources told CNN, in a vote that would be the first sign of where his support lies.

    The group then discussed the pros and cons of supporting the motion to vacate, with one of the downsides being it could hinder their ability to finish work on spending bills ahead of the November 17 deadline.

    South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, who is still undecided on his vote, confirmed that there was a meeting with a “good many” GOP members, where they discussed their options and Gaetz addressed the room.

    “Members of the Republican Party might vote differently on a motion to vacate if they heard what the speaker had to share with us about his secret side deal with Joe Biden on Ukraine.

    In Sunday remarks responding to the thwarted government shutdown, President Joe Biden called on McCarthy and other Republican leaders to follow through on a commitment to hold a standalone vote on funding for Ukraine as it attempts to fight off Russia’s invasion.


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