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Matt Gaetz threatens to oust McCarthy as House speaker in fiery floor speech

Firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz on Tuesday threatened to move to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy if he doesn’t comply with his commitments to GOP hardliners.

Gaetz (R-Fla.) vowed to go ahead with the motion to vacate the chair if McCarthy (R-Calif.) allows a stopgap measure or continuing resolution to receive a vote on the floor,

“No continuing resolutions, individual spending bills, votes on balanced budgets and term limits,” Gaetz warned.

“Subpoenas for Hunter Biden and the members of the Biden family. Impeach Joe Biden. Do these things or face a motion to vacate the chair.”

McCarthy has indicated he supports a continuing resolution to forestall a government shutdown by the month’s end.

Every fiscal year, Congress has to fund the government, or it shuts down. During the debt ceiling fight, both parties agreed to fund the government via 12 appropriations bills instead of a massive omnibus bill.

But Congress remains far away from accomplishing that before the fiscal year concludes. This is why many lawmakers have favored a continuing resolution to keep the government open and buy more time.

Even Gaetz acknowledged that reality in his floor speech.

“There is no way to pass all the appropriations bills now,” Gaetz conceded. “And it’s not like we didn’t know when Sept. 30 was going to show up on the calendar.”

Should Congress fail to act by Sept. 30, either through the 12 appropriations bills or a continuing resolution, the government will shut down.

Complicating passage of the appropriations bills is a vast disagreement between the House and Senate on spending levels.

Although the two chambers agreed to top-line spending levels in the Fiscal Responsibility Act that ended the debt ceiling impasse, McCarthy has caved to pressure from conservative hardliners and tasked his appropriators to craft thinner bills.

McCarthy’s right flank, namely the House Freedom Caucus, has clamored for even deeper cuts in spending.

Although the two chambers agreed to top-line spending levels in the Fiscal Responsibility Act that ended the debt ceiling impasse, McCarthy has caved to pressure from conservative hardliners and tasked his appropriators to craft thinner bills.

A motion to vacate only necessitates one vote to initiate and would only need a few Republicans to band together with Democrats to oust him, given the GOP’s wafer-thin majority in the chamber, which Republicans control 222 seats to 212.

On Monday, McCarthy downplayed the threat from Gaetz, who mused about teaming up with Democrats to boot him from the speakership.

“Look, Matt’s Matt,” McCarthy said.

Gaetz, who is under an ethics investigation for which his allies have faulted McCarthy, voted “Present” for McCarthy earlier this year to help end his grovel for the gavel, which took a historically unprecedented 15 votes.

Speaker McCarthy takes a stab back at Rep Gaetz re his ongoing House Ethics investigation “The one thing I make very clear, he can threaten all he wants, I will not interject the speaker into the independent ethics committee to influence it any way at all,” McCarthy said.

To break the impasse and claim the speakership, McCarthy cut a multitude of deals with GOP hardliners. Gaetz put him on notice Tuesday.

“Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role. The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate total compliance or remove you,” Gaetz added.

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