GOP senator: McCarthy’s critics want to blow up the House and themselves

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) criticized those who voted to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as House Speaker on Tuesday.

“A handful House members just want to blow up the institution and themselves in the process,” Cornyn said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Sad.”

Cornyn’s post quoted another post that appeared to criticize comments he he reportedly made, calling to push to get McCarthy out “disgraceful” and dubbing it a “terrorist attack.”

“We saw a similar thing happen to Boehner, Ryan, and now McCarthy. I’m sure the next speaker is going to be subjected to the same terrorist attacks,” Cornyn said, according to a post by HuffPost reporter Igor Bobic.

McCarthy was ousted as Speaker in a 216-210 bipartisan vote Tuesday afternoon. It was the first time the House had voted to remove a sitting Speaker in its history.

The California Republican’s removal from the Speaker’s office followed weeks of chaos in Congress over spending bills. The government had just barely avoided a shutdown when Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) filed a motion to vacate McCarthy on Monday.

“He doesn’t have my support anymore and he doesn’t have the support of a requisite number of Republicans to continue as the Republican Speaker,” Gaetz said Monday.

McCarthy seemed defiant in the face of the motion, appearing willing to brave the effort to push him out.

“Bring it on,” he wrote Monday in a post on X.