Kevin McCarthy Will Not Run Again for Speaker of the House
McCarthy won’t run again, but someone could nominate him.
Kevin McCarthy told House Republicans he will not run again for Speaker of the House.
The meeting took place around 6:30 PM ET.
The House ousted him as Speaker, 218-210, with 10 Republicans joining the Democrats.
Fox confirms McCarthy tells GOPers he will not run again for Speaker
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) October 3, 2023
Fox is told that even though McCarthy says he won’t run for Speaker, thst doesn’t mean McCarthy might not be “drafted” or his name put into nomination for Speaker.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) October 3, 2023
MCCARTHY IN CLOSED GOP MEETING
We got a lot of big challenges
I dont want this to be an angry meeting. I firmly trust in God
You need 218 votes to be speaker — and for the rules and amendments.
U held my mouth until you said something that wasnt true. And i did it for the…
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 3, 2023
And i did it for the good of the conference. The Dems came to me to make a deal. I wasnt goign to make a deal.
When eight people work with the Democrats, it’s not for the best of the conference.
I got to be the 55th speaker — my goal has been to save the country. I love a lot…
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 3, 2023
And i did it for the good of the conference. The Dems came to me to make a deal. I wasnt goign to make a deal.
When eight people work with the Democrats, it’s not for the best of the conference.
I got to be the 55th speaker — my goal has been to save the country. I love a lot…
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 3, 2023
Those who stuck with me ill never forget it. I want you to all go home and see your family.
He quoted Lou Gehrig — he said he is the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I’m optimistic because i dont know what else to be
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 3, 2023
Im not going to sell my soul to Democrats. Ill still work to get you elected — maybe not all of you because i’m a free agent.
When we come out of the next vote, let’s elect that person on the first round. if i have to be the sacrifice, so be it.
We’re the only conservative…
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 3, 2023
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Comments
The “purple puddle” election of 2022 made all this inevitable — the Pubs do not have enough votes beyond the 218 votes for a majority to manage even a few dissenters, and the Pubs have no speaker candidate with the ruthlessness of Nancy Pelosi (or even Tip O’Neil) to keep their people in line.
I honestly don’t care about Mr. McCarthy one way or the other; he’s interchangeable with 90% of the other Pubs in political life today. He’s not addressing my concerns or the concerns of the common-sense conservative base in this country, he’s just playing the game. But all the other viable speaker candidates (if any) are the same.
So a few days, weeks or months with a vacant chair for the Speaker? Okay, let me know when it finally begins to matter.
That is what is wrong with Washington! We elect them to vote as we want not as some block vote making back door deals. And there is zero ground game for elections at all anymore on the Republican side and that is why we are losing elections. I remember when they did go door to door in my large city back in 2012. Now they don’t do any of it here. They ran away and gave up. I called the county level and state level to complain about it. They said it’s a lost cause. So you give up between 70-100,000 votes that easily? No wonder we lose. The Democrats on the other hand never cease to knock on my door even though they know I am a registered Republican. Even independents are knocking. And I just loved how the party endorsed a Democrat for our DA position and also helped a Democrat become the sheriff to. We now have a split local party at war because of sell outs to Soros types. We have an Independent Mayor for the first time in 100 years. We are on the verge of losing the entire county legislature too. Have to move now as it is dangerous living here now.
But, but… McCarthy was just getting ready to repeal ObamaCare. I know he was!
This is the reality: the Dem party is an activist fighting organization with the goal of one party governance (them) and little or no opposition (us). They have been working on this to some degree or another since before any of us here were even born. Dems are ruthless in their pursuit of power and control. Repubs have regarded Dems as wayward teenagers who will eventually grow out of this “phase”. Well, they won’t, this is them. The Repubs have conservatives in their ranks which makes most of the party sick to their stomachs, but must tolerate them because they-we are the base. Until the party is overwhelmingly Conservative we stand little chance of knocking off the Dems on the national level. We will have to act aggressively on the local level. It will take years.
Good, we might as well have had a communist sitting in that chair.
People are starting to figure out R is just slower D.
I forgot who said that if Democrats proposed burning down the Library of Congress, Republicans would counter with a demand that the arson be phased in over several years.
This is why I won’t vote the party, my votes are for the candidate.
Trouble is, ever since JFK I have seen zero candidates with a “D” after their names who were not commie sympathizers.
Sympathizers?
You misspelled ‘Marxists…’
Yea, and not much slower either.
Finally, the GOP house accomplished something that doesn’t involve money for Ukraine.
Patrick McHenry of NC, a craven RINO, is speaker Pro Tem. This is beginning to look like a giant step backwards.
Per the rules. He just happened to be next in line. It doesn’t mean anything because the House can’t do any more floor business until they elect a new speaker. In effect, all he can do is preside over the voting.
He wasn’t “next in line” After 9/11, The Speaker had to make a list of succession for Interim Speaker if the Speaker was…gone.
I am surprised McCarthy did not designate Kamala Harris as next in line. That would have kept people from ousting him!
Well at least on day one he had the gumption to kick Pelosi out of the office reserved for speaker of the house, her boney arse had been parked in. McCarthy had let her remain in which was pathetic of him and something no Democrat ever would do when the GOP lost control
That office is not “reserved for speaker of the house”. The email Pelosi got said it was going to be reassigned for the speaker’s use, presumably because he hasn’t got an office in the Capitol so he had to evict someone and it was either going to be Pelosi or McCarthy. McCarthy let her keep her old office just as she let Hastert keep his office, and every speaker generally lets his predecessors do the same, because he didn’t need it. They usually already have an office in the Capitol, or there’s an empty one available. This is an unusual situation, with no empty offices there and he didn’t already have one, so he had to pick someone to evict.
Your explanation is correct. Some people just don’t get it but it’s also true that the timing of the notification caused the media to inflate and inflame the matter
It was one of the few special offices that she claimed BECAUSE she HAD been Speaker of the House….my point EXACTLY remains….good gawd Milhouse you are a tiresome old Karen
No, you claimed that this office was reserved for the speaker, and that “McCarthy had let her remain in which was pathetic of him and something no Democrat ever would do when the GOP lost control”. That claim is absolutely false. Not only is it not an office reserved for the speaker of the day, but every Democrat, including Pelosi, has let their predecessor keep whichever Capitol office they were in.
Your new claim is also false. She never claimed that office because she had been speaker. She got that office as minority leader, and kept it through her time as speaker and after. As is the usual practice. The only reason she got booted out of it now is because McHenry didn’t already have an office there, and there were no empty ones, so he had to boot someone, and she was it.
I used to lobby on Capitol Hill for disability issues. I remember a security guard showing us the Office of Speaker of the House in the Capitol. He said and I quote, “The one thing that stays the same is this office. Only the people names on the door change.”
That is not the office we are talking about. We are talking about one of the unmarked “hideaway” offices near the House chamber, where privileged members can duck in for some privacy during a House sitting, without having to walk all the way to their official offices, which are usually in another building, though in the Speaker’s case it’s in the same building, just farther away. McHenry has just become one of these privileged few entitled to one of these offices, and there wasn’t one empty so he decided to take Pelosi’s.
Oh what I’d pay to see her face when the USAF business jet limo she has abused so flagrantly gets taken away and she gets told she is flying commercial from now on.
Maybe she can use some of her insider trading cash to upgrade her seat.
She doesn’t have to. Many years ago I was “downgraded” by United from First Class on a IAD to SFO flight because Nancy and her aides wanted the entire (small, I think 6 or 8 seats ) First Class cabin to themselves so that they could “talk business” privately. At least that is what the stewardess told me. So United kicked me out.
Pelosi let child molester Dennis Hastert stay in his office…it’s not unheard of and certainly not a big deal given all the other challenges
That was a no-brainer. My point was – don’t expect much from Patrick McHenry.
Congressman Troy Nehls has nominated former President Donald Trump for Speaker.
Popcorn anyone?
We will find out what will be worse. Paraphrasing a patron saint of the Dems … the Repubs will vote in the speaker to hang themselves with .
Gaetz is fundraising the crap out of the day’s events. I’ve gotten at least three beg emails from him just today, two yesterday. Annoying.
Hey Matt –you’re doing what we already pay you a salary to do. Get the problem actually resolved, and watch the money come in later.
Beats getting your funding from wall st billionaires like rupert murdoch. I don’t blame him, he’s asking for funding from Americans.
Now, if they could get rid of the RNC, as well.
Granting I have a somewhat morbid sense of humor, but I would not be surprised if McCarthy switched parties and ran again as a Democrat.
Subotai Bahadur
He wouldn’t have to change his policies any, would he?
Not in the least.
He made a deal to become speaker and than reneged on almost every part of that deal.
He expected the people he dealt with to role over and for months they did. Eventually they called him on it and now he’s out of the position.
I just wish Republicans would stop being scared and wield power without worrying about anything else. With a 218 majority Pelosi would have been beating the crap out of the Republicans. She’s a terrible person but she wasn’t afraid to do anything with a slim majority.
Had McCarthy held to the deal and fought he’d probably be the most popular Republican after Trump in the country. As usual though he was weak and played the same old softball game Republicans are notorious for.
And while I support dumping him because I believe a man who can’t keep his word has no business being a leader there is no one who comes after him that would keep their word. Gaetz and his crew don’t have the support to become speaker and all the rest would just turn into another weak McCarthy.
Maybe the Republicans can make a deal with Nancy Pelosi to be Speaker, as long as she promises to fight as hard for Republicans as she did for Democrats.
Apparently, she’s the only with with a set of balls big enough to be a man. The Republicans certainly don’t.
I agree one hundred percent. Nancy’s got more balls than all the Republicans combined.
Which is why I applaud the speaker pro tem FINALLY booting her out of the Speaker of the House office… McCarthy never had the guts to even do that!
Again, that is not the “Speaker of the House office”. It’s just an office. It was Pelosi’s when she was House minority leader, she kept it when she was speaker, and she still had it until today, as is the usual custom. McHenry kicked her out because he needs an office for himself, and there weren’t any empty ones.
AGAIN…. my point remains…. You are a tiresome old Karen and he booted her from a special office she had claimed because of her previous role. You constantly demonstrate why people hate lawyers and have little to no respect for the law…..what I said WAS. correct as regards to what happened… but you had to “lawyer it” in that disgusting way you have…. ‘Well there was a comma here or a shall be and therefore what it really said was’…. Bottom line and what a lawyer like yourself is unable to understand…. She was in one of just a few special offices due to her PREVIOUS role and she was evicted by the guy who is now in that role. And don’t bother “telling us” that Acshually….. he’’s Speaker pro tem…. 🤡
No, your point remains utterly false.
Perhaps not so much balls as unbelievable gall, insolence , entitlement, avarice, dishonesty, etc..
At the very least she made an impact, negative or not.
The Republican leadership is scared sh**less every time a “governmenet shutdown” is threatened. Ooooooh. THey piss their pants all over the place like a sick puppy. The Democrats, meanwhile, have no qualms about shutting down the government and abusing power to make life miserable for normal people (closing open air federal monuments and national parks and “scenic lookouts”!). The GOP bends over backwards at any threat of government shutdown and does the dems’ bidding. It’s pathetic. And the most ridiculous part of the whole thing is that the dems and their pets are the ones that need the government running, as they are leeching off of it.
The power of the purse is the greatest power there is and the GOP leadership acts as if they are powerless with it. Propose spending. Let the Senate do or not do whatever they want. Don’t budge an inch and let the dems shut it all down.
Correct. Just spend a little time on the Giverment Employees site at Reddit. The whole thread is full of leeches complaining about not having a shutdown, and being denied their “paid vacations” – because they eventually get all the back pay and benefits.
It’s bad enough they only work 10 months out of the year due the very generous leave accrual and the outrageous number of paid holidays, but they also get to stay home during a shut down AND get paid.
Add in adverse weather (previously “snow days” have morphed into too much rain, or I don’t feel like working today) and the “nonessential” grifters still get paid.
Nonessential employees need to be furloughed.
They should be required to use PTO every time the government shuts down or not get paid. Like the rest of us do.
Lazy bastards.
The next guy probably won’t be much better, but he’ll know that it takes ONE person to initiate the vote to vacate and if they don’t keep their word, that vote CAN and WILL happen. McCarthy was banking on the proposition that it was an empty threat, he found out otherwise.
“but he’ll know that it takes ONE person to initiate the vote to vacate”
Will it, really? Was that a one-off thing McCarthy agreed to just for him, or does it bind everybody now until it’s changed back?
yes
AS far as I’m, aware, it’s the rule now and the next speaker would have to change it. But that change can’t happen until they are speaker.
The establishment didn’t learn from the messy Jan bickering to select a Speaker. They apparently thought they could could use the prior tactics of running out the clock on getting appropriations passed via regular order so they could have an ’emergency’ to blame a boosted omnibus upon.
They got what 43 days until the CR runs out? Lots of folks, me included would be more than happy for the CR to expire and no budget passed v a bloated omnibus. Heck, an automatic mini sequestration budget goes into effect on Jan 1st anyway. It’s a 1% reduction of FY23 budget for FY24. Eff it. Furlough the ‘nonessential’ workers. Let the agencies figure out how to make their employees whole. Just pass a simple bill requiring the departments to total up the deferred earned salary of those who worked v stayed home as ‘nonessential’ and report that to Congress with a follow up up/down vote w/o any amendment to authorize the departments to move $ within the existing budget to make those employees who actually worked without pay whole.
We have a $2 trillion deficit because of Covid spending and Green New Deal garbage (Inflation Reduction Act) We need to go back to 2019 levels adjusted for subsequent inflation, which is a lot less than FY 2023 less 1%.
We need to go back to FY2000 levels.
How about we reduce the number of agencies to pre 1820 level?
YES! I am so down with this!
Don’t. Don’t give me hope.
Love it. Go back to the Constitution.
Did everyone forget how we got all that spending and who was in charge of The House as Speaker? It wasn’t The Freedom Caucus.
I wish it was only $2 Trillion. The total is closer to $6.5 Trillion for total Federal Covid spending from ’20 – ’23 along with the spending so far on Inflation Reduction Act (Biden’s green new deal).
IMO we should go back to last Clinton Budget as the baseline. Then add in the expansion for Bush’s Medicare spending and add in the use the original Obamacare estimates used to sell it.
They last Clinton admin budget was in balance(ish) accounting gimmicks were used but much closer then than now due to HoR GoP majority forcing the issue. The leftists can’t complain too much about adding in additional healthcare $ for Bush era Medicare expansion and Obama care but limiting that additional $ to the original cost estimates. Then adjust this total baseline baseline budget amount for the rampant inflation since then. It would still be a huge amount of taxpayer $ being spent.
Baseline budget? Nope.
Zero Budget rules. Every year, the government should validate what they have accomplished and how much they need without regard for what they received the previous year.
Then the individual budgets need to be voted on without Omnibus bills
As a starting point for agencies to figure out how to make do with less in a one year transition. Not for a new permanent one way (only higher) ratchet effect. For comparison the FY 2000 budget was $1.78 Trillion while the FY22 budget was $6.22 Trillion. Even stripped of the funding for the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ that’s well more than double.
Only about 25% +/- of total Federal spending items are ‘discretionary’, the rest is comprised of ‘non discretionary’ spending; Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and so on. That’s where the bulk of the sending is and thus where cuts to spending would have an impact. Gonna be tricky politically to do.
One example is Defense spending. It is a discretionary item. Interest payments to service the National debt is non discretionary. FWIW our payments to service the existing National debt are about to exceed the total of US defense spending.
We are like a household that has maxed the credit card to buy more crap but only make minimum payments. Each year we get a new line of credit on a new card then repeat the process. Now we have the minimum payments on the existing credit cards exceeding the amounts needed for legitimate basic household expenses.
Se non ora, quando?
If there’s one silver lining that has come from this Congressional Speaker of the House conflict, it’s that we’re seeing who in conservative media are fighting 100% for the American people and which ones are only conservative when it’s convenient.
Nothing Matt Gaetz has been saying is wrong. In fact, nearly all of it is true. I’m more disappointed in the national conservative media detractors, some of whom are people who constantly complain that we need to drain the swamp. Very eye-opening.
I like Mark Levin, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee, and I can tolerate Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity, but they and others are wrong to be propping up Ukraine-First and RINO Kevin McCarthy.
-Can any of them make a case for omnibus over individual single line spending bills?
-Can any of them claim McCarthy has stuck to the terms of the deal that he agreed to in order to become Speaker?
-Can any of them claim that the January 6th video tapes were publicly released?
-Can any of them say it’s a total coincidence that the Gaetz ethics complaint, long-shelved, popped back up now and leaked to the NY Times?
-Can any of them justify pulling Ukraine funding in the CR, only to work a deal for continued aid in the shadows and on the side with Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell on last Saturday?
It’s dirty politics being played by both sides, but—for whatever reason—maintaining the status quo is getting a pass from so many of these “conservative icons” and Fox News commentators while they yell and lambast Gaetz and his allies for being scrappy for the sake of the nation.
If not now, when? I rest my case.
“Can any of them…”
Of course not. They are the problem, not the solution. They are all playing a con game to fool you and they are all deep state government people. It is the $$$ that they are after along with the power to run your life.
I’m watching McCarthy’s press conference. He thinks he’s really dazzling everyone but he’s full of it. He keeps justifying his s*** surrenders by saying “I kept the government open”. He’s said that at least three times, already. He thinks that’s a good argument, but that is exactly his problem.
Watching the rerun, I meant …
I’m terms of the budget issues, I agree with most here. But ousting McCarthy will not help. It will make the Republicans look worse in the eyes of the country. That, in turn, won’t help election efforts in 2024. Do you think the country is going to vote for a Gaetz-controlled Republican House and Trump at the top of the ballot. It will never happen. Instead we will get the senile old man, who will resign or die leaving us with Harris, and a Democratically controlled House. Maybe we hold the Senate. Doesn’t really matter at that point. You are asking for four more years of destroying America because McCarthy wasn’t “burn it all down” fast enough. McCarthy had little power to maneuver, as should be obvious now.
Make the Republicans look worse? I think not.
Seeing someone willing to actually take action to cut the head off the snake, as compared to simply going on cable news and blowing sunshine up the public’s rectum about it, is providing much needed hope. At least among the people I know.
Even the rusted-on Dems among my neighbors are saying “it’s about time someone acted” or words to that effect. The rapid national slide downhill has become impossible to miss, unless one lives in the la-la land inside the beltway in DC or one of our other big blue city alternate reality cesspits.
Republicans have nothing to fear in 2024 unless they botch this hard-won opportunity to make actual change.
Maybe. On the other hand perhaps being hit upside the head with the 2×4 of removing the Speaker will convince the DC establishment that times have changed and that there is a core of representatives in the HoR who will use any means necessary to do what voters sent them to DC to do; represent the policies voters want instead of the policies the establishment prefer and the lobbyists want.
I would love for you to be right and for me to be wrong.
IMO we are both correct to degree. It’s likely gonna take repeated smacks to the head with a blunt instrument for the DC establishment to understand, accept and operate under the new reality.
The reason for so much angst in DC is that this core of populist representatives have seemingly entered DGAF territory. They have things they want in return for their votes and those things ain’t negotiable nor really extreme. After all the establishment agreed to theses items during the process of selecting a Speaker.
The establishment thought this would be acceptable b/c they believed they would be able use the same tired tactics of ‘hey, we tried hard gosh darn it but the d/prog in the HoR won’t budge and the Senate is run by Schumer so they won’t pass what you Populists want and even if they did Biden won’t sign it’.
Maybe the Senate won’t pass it. Maybe Biden won’t sign it. On the other hand if there’s no alternative legislation agreed to by the HoR majority of GoP then they won’t have much choice except to ‘blame GoP’; shocker, they gonna do that regardless so at least make it count. Stop trying to anticipate what the Biden WH or a Senate controlled by Schumer will accept. Pass the appropriations that the GoP voters want, stand firm and then see what happens when d/prog figure out that a GoP budget to fund Federal govt is much better than no budget passing.
I agree. We didn’t get here in one step, won’t get out in one either. I think Gaetz overplayed his hand. I don’t know that the next speaker will be more conservative. It seems that there are 200 republicans who aren’t too impressed with the strategy so far. It may be that the next speaker, in order to get a few Democrat votes, may barter with the Dems on things like no impeachment inquiries. Or maybe perchance there is a more conservative speaker that cannot do a one man show any more than the previous and gets the boot too.
Sorry. Not buying it. Under Pelosi, even in the minority, she had more sway and got what she wanted more than McCarthy accomplished with a slim majority.
We’ve given Republicans the House, Senate, and Executive branch and they still sat on their hands, and the Democrats still got what they wanted.
If the nation is satisfied with a demented pervert, and a party that is one step away from euthanasia for unborn, inform, and ages, the America deserves the hell hole that comes from it.
America is already destroyed. Picking up the remnants of this once great nation will take a party with a backbone, and the Republican Party ain’t it. Not saying the Democrats are either.
You do know that there is no way to keep a GOP caucus herded, right? The only person who has come even close to doing so in my lifetime is Newt Gingrich, and even he had to barter and bribe with our money (via earmarks) to get enough votes (and did not have them all as Dems routinely do).
Our government is broken, but not because of the structure or rules or anything but human weakness and failure. It’s about them now, not us, what they can get for themselves, and if that accidentally means we, the people get a crumb, they ride that to reelection. The GOP has been shaken up since Trump, well, really since the Tea Party, but they still don’t get it. And while things look surprisingly hopeful, I know that the Stupid Party is, first and foremost, stupid.
An old axiom around DC for years: When Dems get together they complain about Republicans. When Republicans get together they complain about Republicans too.
McCarthy won’t run for Speaker. Did he miss the entire point of the exercise?
Actually, I don’t think he did. He F’d around, he found and and I don’t think he liked what he saw. That’s fine, we don’t want the old rules he tried to play by.
Appoint Trump speaker. Impeach Biden and Harris simultaneously.
I think blowing up the House may backfire. I hope not, but I don’t think it was wise. Everyone applauded their holding out in January. As Massie said the agreement was a CR of 98%, so it wasn’t a great deal to go to the matt over..
The CR wasn’t THE issue, it was the final straw.
What do you imagine that would achieve? They’d both be guaranteed acquittal. And Trump would not only be miserable as speaker, he’d be terrible at it.