US Speaker McCarthy vows to survive removal threat for avoiding shutdown: ‘This is personal’
- Hardline Republican Matt Gaetz said he would call for a vote to oust McCarthy after the top Republican stunned Washington by backing a stopgap funding bill
- The bill to fund the government until November 17, did not include spending cuts or changes to border security that hardline colleagues had called for
Top United States House Republican Kevin McCarthy said on Sunday he expected to survive a threat to his speakership after a hardline critic within his party called for his removal following the passage of a stopgap government funding bill that drew more support from Democrats than Republicans.
Hardline Republican congressman Matt Gaetz told multiple US media outlets he would file a “motion to vacate,” a call for a vote to remove McCarthy as speaker, testing McCarthy’s support in the House of Representatives, which his party controls by a narrow 221-212 margin.
“I’ll survive”, McCarthy said on CBS. “This is personal with Gaetz”.
Gaetz is one of a group of about two dozen hardliners who forced McCarthy to endure a withering 15 rounds of voting in January before he was elected speaker, during which they squeezed out concessions including a rule change to allow any one House member to call for a vote to oust the speaker.
It was not clear how much support McCarthy would have in such a vote, or whether any Democrats would back him. McCarthy angered Democrats last month by launching an impeachment inquiry of US President Joe Biden.
“If at this time next week Kevin McCarthy is still Speaker of the House, it will be because Democrats bailed him out”, Gaetz said in an interview on ABC. “I am relentless and I will continue to pursue this objective.”