McCarthy says if GOP outs him, Biden gets what he wants

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Sunday that if House Republicans remove him, President Biden will get what he wants.

McCarthy has been facing increasing threats from his own conference — particularly from Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) — about a motion to vacate, which would effectively be a vote to remove the Speaker.

He argued Sunday that such a motion would need Democratic support to be successful.

“If you did a motion to vacate, it would have to a handful of Republicans [working] with [Reps.] Adam Schiff [D-Calif.], Eric Swalwell [D-Calif.], Ilhan Omar [D-Minn.] to remove the Speaker and it would be exactly what the president wants because it would shut down [the House],” McCarthy told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”

He also said this process would shut down a House impeachment inquiry of Biden, an argument he has also used in the past against talk of a motion to vacate the chair.

“You know how much we went through in January, how would we ever select the Speaker? I would say we’d go through it. So there would be no investigation,” he said.

McCarthy was only elected Speaker in January after a historic 15th ballot as Republicans opposed to his leadership held out for various commitments from him. The process effectively shut down work in the House for a week. Democrats in those votes backed their leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), for Speaker.

Gaetz has vowed to bring a motion to oust the California Republican from the Speakership if he did not meet a series of demands on spending and legislation. 

Gaetz first warned McCarthy in August that he would move to remove him if he did not direct committees to open an impeachment inquiry into Biden.

After McCarthy directed committees to open the inquiry last week, Gaetz said that was just a “baby step.”

Gaetz has faced scrutiny from his colleagues over whether he is serious about bringing a vote to the floor, but he has insisted that he will follow through.

“If you want to file a motion to vacate, then file the f‑‑‑ing motion,” McCarthy said during a closed-door GOP conference meeting Thursday, according to Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.).

McCarthy said that he is not going to be deterred by the potential move to remove him.

“These are individuals that they have a right to do what they want. But I am only going to focus on the American public,” he said.

Gaetz responded to McCarthy’s comments in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Sunday morning.

“It’s disappointing that @SpeakerMcCarthy is spending one of his final Sundays as Speaker lying about me on Fox,” he tweeted in response to McCarthy’s comments alongside a video of an appearance the Florida congressman made on MSNBC discussing the motion.

— Updated at 12:52 p.m.