Rep. Matt Gaetz attempts to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Florida Republican Matt Gaetz finally followed through with a longstanding threat. He went to the floor of the House and started the process to try to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: The gentleman will state the form of his resolution.
MATT GAETZ: Declaring the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives to be vacant.
CHANG: Now, this is just a first step. Gaetz claims he has enough Republicans ready to vote with him, but that will be put to the test in the coming days. NPR congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales is on Capitol Hill and joins us now. Hi, Claudia.
CLAUDIA GRISALES, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK. So Gaetz has been threatening to do this for weeks. So what changed to turn this from a threat to a reality?
GRISALES: He really framed this as the last straw of a series of broken promises, he claims, from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. This last straw with this - was this temporary stopgap spending measure that was passed over the weekend to keep the government open. He also has these claims that there was a secret deal made between McCarthy and Democrats to push through with a plan to allow funding - a new round of funding and aid for Ukraine, and this would be in exchange for addressing the southern U.S.-Mexico border. And, of course, this has been rejected by McCarthy, and our reporting has not borne that out.
But he said, in addition to that, there hasn't been enough time to review legislation - that rules were broken there in terms of how it was pushed through the floor - that Republicans House members have spent too much time away from the chamber and been too slow to pass appropriations deals. And then he also pointed to the debt limit deal with Biden and that there hasn't been enough focus on the border. So enough is enough is essentially what he was telling us after that motion that he made on the House floor to the reporters who gathered around him outside of the Capitol. He also talked about claims that there was talk of expelling him from the chamber and an ethics probe investigation, and he claims that McCarthy and his allies have been pushing this conspiracy theory against him.
CHANG: And, Claudia, you were in the chamber when this all happened. Tell us about what it was like.
GRISALES: Right. It was a lot of suspense. You could see Gaetz and some of his own allies who are expected to vote with him - for example, Arizona freshman Eli Crane - sitting together near the center aisle. McCarthy was not very far from them. And they were holding their regular votes, and it was that moment - right before he was going to make that motion, the chamber became incredibly still. Democrats were spellbound watching Gaetz come to the dais to make his remarks, and it was clear that Republicans looked upset. Many of them are not on board with this plan, but it only takes one Republican to try to remove the speaker to force a vote.
Before this all happened, many Republicans were going up to Gaetz and Crane and others. And one of those members I talked to, Rick Allen of Georgia, said he was trying to convince them not to do this. He said they should figure out a way to get through this - that they're playing into President Biden's hands, for example, demonstrating this chaotic scene. And he said, if we disrupt the leadership in our conference, they're going to destroy everything they've worked for this year.
CHANG: Well, if you say that a lot, a lot, a lot of Republicans oppose this plan, how many are with Gaetz, actually?
GRISALES: He says enough to make this vote happen and go through and remove McCarthy unless Democrats step in to save him.
CHANG: OK. And how quickly could that vote happen?
GRISALES: As soon as Wednesday.
CHANG: All right. That is NPR congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales. Thank you so much, Claudia.
GRISALES: Thank you.
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