“The presidency of the Lower House is declared vacant,” said the legislator in charge of leading the session in Congress.
The revenge against Kevin McCarthy for having helped keep the Government open financially is already served. The civil war between Republicans, unleashed by a minority of ultras (eight) led by Matt Gaetz, ended yesterday with the dismissal of the president of the Lower House and leader of the conservative majority, something never seen in the history of the United States.
The result was 216 votes in favor of his expulsion (among them, eight Republican dissidents) against 210 against and marked a day for the annals. Seven legislators did not vote. Four of them were Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi.
The party that genuflects to Trump is the one that is portrayed before society. In parallel, furious at McCarthy's concessions to Republican extremists – we must not forget that he is another Trump collaborator – the Democrats did not miss the opportunity to dig into the wound and vote en bloc to oust the president.
“Unfortunately, our Republican colleagues are not capable of breaking with the extremists,” announced Hakeem Jeffeis, Democratic minority leader, when recommending a vote in favor of ousting McCarthy. Only five Republican votes were needed to force McCarthy out if progressives responded as a group.
His dismissal means entering unexplored territory. He had never forced himself to vacate the position of president of the Lower House. There were two previous requests that failed. One in 1910. The last one in 2015 against Republican speaker John Boehner. It was never voted on, but Bohener left office earlier than expected.
Without a president, the House is paralyzed waiting for someone to take the reins and means leaving the third position of power in the United States vacant. Republican Patrick McHenry began serving as interim.
McCarthy had to face 15 votes last January to win the position. Gaetz then led the opposition, until Trump told him that enough was enough. In this new challenge, McCarthy insisted that he had majority support in the conservative group, so, if he lost, he responded with a “we'll see” given the possibility of trying to compete again for the gavel.
To neutralize the operation, a proposal was hastily proposed to prevent a single legislator from forcing a vote to remove the president of the House. But it failed. Eleven Republicans opposed it, along with Democrats, and then the show began.
It was an unparalleled spectacle to see how Republicans took the floor to tear apart not a rival, but one of their own, their supposed leader, while others, more numerous, praised the speaker and criticized the dissidents for being agents of chaos. in the House and in the country. “Chaos is McCarthy, someone you can't trust his word for,” Gaetz replied.
Meanwhile, the Democrats listened and didn't open their mouths, they didn't need to.
