Donald Trump had another difficult day in New York as his civil fraud trial entered its second day. And then it got worse when the gag order was issued. But Matt Gaetz (R-FL), perhaps Trump’s most loyal follower, gave him a reason to smile. When Gaetz’ motion to vacate the House Speakership was approved, it was a dark day for the Constitution, perhaps the darkest since January 6, 2021.
Trump, of course, did not ask Gaetz to remove Speaker McCarthy, but did not stop the seven radical Republicans who voted with Gaetz to ensure passage of the measure. Perhaps Trump should be forgiven. His fortune is in jeopardy—a deranged judge will determine whether The Trump Organization loses its right to do business in New York. A deranged prosecutor is urging the court to require Trump disgorge a quarter billion dollars earned through civil fraud.
Regardless of Trump’s relationship with former Speaker McCarthy, the unprecedented House action was what Trump wanted. Gaetz’s motion to vacate the Speakership will throw the House of Representatives into chaos. Trump thrives on chaos. Gaetz delivered.
McCarthy’s decision to support a continuing resolution to keep the government running for 45 more days was the outrage that drove Gaetz to repeatedly threaten to “go nuclear” on McCarthy. Those 45 days gave Congress the opportunity to compromise and avoid disrupting services and benefits to millions of Americans who need them. It also gave the United States an opportunity to avoid embarrassing itself in front of the rest of the world.
The final vote to oust McCarthy was 216-210. With that vote, a scramble is underway to find a new speaker. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has been appointed temporary House Speaker. Many expect Steve Scalise to be elected speaker, but it is not clear whether Gaetz and the other seven Republicans who voted to fire McCarthy will find that acceptable. Kevin McCarthy has announced he will not be a candidate.
Mr. Gaetz has become a much-hated man within the Republican caucus. He is so disliked by many of his colleagues that there is talk of attempting to expel him based on evidence that he transported underage girls across state lines for sex, has engaged in illicit drug use, shared inappropriate pictures and videos on the floor (presumably pornographic), converted campaign funds to personal use, and accepted gifts in violation of House rules. He was not charged in the sex trafficking case, but there is video that appears to show him using cocaine on the House Floor.
It is unlikely Gaetz will be expelled. If the House Ethic Committee moves to expel him, expect Donald Trump to rally support for him.
McCarthy’s firing required the block voting of the Democratic caucus. Should they have come to McCarthy’s rescue? Perhaps, for the stake of the stability of the House. But the Republican caucus would not have voted to continue Hakeem Jeffries’ Speakership if the Democrats had been in control.
McCarthy’s ouster says a lot about the ability of the Republicans to lead the House of Representatives. They failed. They do not deserve to control the House—a thought that many voters are likely to remember next November. A house divided (in this case the GOP caucus in the House of Representatives) is doomed to fall. Let’s hope that adage proves true.
Who is to blame for yesterday’s sad chapter in American history? One could point to Gaetz, but Matt Gaetz is an offensive cartoon. With his slick hair, reckless comments, and swagger, it is hard to imagine him having the power to accomplish anything on Capitol Hill. Gaetz should be considered as a symptom of the disease of the Republican party rather than its cause.
In more ways than one, the full Republican caucus is to blame for McCarthy’s ouster. Couldn’t they have stopped him from taking an action that all but eight members of the GOP caucus opposed?
What about Trump? It is credible to blame him. It is likely that Gaetz acted at Trump’s behest, but Trump himself is not the problem so much as the MAGA movement, whose purpose may be summarized as dismantling the “deep state.” The term “deep state” does not have a universally agreed upon definition but is widely understood to mean a government that does things for people. And the reason the “deep state” does things for people is because the United States is a representative democracy.
If America were governed by a single autocrat, say Donald Trump, hundreds of programs supporting civil rights, education, health, safety, and the economy would be ended overnight. That, for most of us, would be the end of the American Experiment. The Constitution, based on representative democracy to ensure citizens’ rights would have failed.
These are dark days. Trump has called for the execution of General Mark Milley, threatened judges and prosecutors, and used the word “deranged” more than most of us thought possible. I would like to say his political career is self-destructing before our eyes, but the movement he started—MAGA—may guarantee him the 2024 Republican nomination.
Should Trump win the presidency, our current form of government is in jeopardy. McCarthy’s ouster is evidence of the danger that a small handful of right-wing radicals can pose. More evidence will follow.
Andy Harris voted “no” on the motion to vacate the Speakership. I look forward to reading about his rationale.
J.E. Dean is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, and other subjects.
Chris Gordon says
The House should choose someone like Larry Hogan to be Speaker. The Speaker does not need to be a member.
John Dean says
That is a great idea. He would do a lot to restore civility and bipartisanship.
Susan De Simone says
Has anybody noticed that Matt Gaetz claimed to vacate Kevin McCarthy because McCarty welcomed Democratic party votes to extend the budget deadline and then Gaetz welcomed Democratic party votes to win the vacating vote.
John Dean says
I did. Ironic, isn’t it?
Thanks for raising that point. I should have included it in the piece.
James Nick says
Mr Dean asks the question: “Should [the Dems] have come to McCarthy’s rescue?”
IMO, the answer is a resounding YES. The Dems made an incredibly stupid strategic error to not support McCarthy. This decision has the potential to alter the course of world history if, say, it ultimately leads to the withdrawal of support for Ukraine, just to name one thing.
Republicans have shown over and over again that they have a knack for forcing us to constantly recalibrate how insanity and incompetence are defined. Considering only the post-WWII era, there was the venal and foul-mouthed Richard Nixon who, we thought, pretty much set the modern standard for presidential lying, paranoia, and law breaking. Then there was Bush the Second who made presidential incompetence an art form by ignoring CIA warnings that Al Qaeda was determined to strike the US, launching a fraudulent war that set fire to the whole of the Middle East, and, as a final act, sleepwalking into a global financial meltdown with his ill-advised laissez faire banking regulations.
And then there was the trump earthquake – an individual that is far, far off the Richter scale on just about any metric there is to measure human morality, ethics, and competence. And still today, he continues to plumb the bottom looking for just how low he can go.
Thanks to trump our country has not been this polarized since the run up to the Civil War. We are on a razor’s edge. Just because the Rs would not have voted to continue Hakeem Jeffries’ speakership if the Ds had been in control is NOT a sound basis for failing to back McCarthy. In the end, McCarthy did the right thing by standing up to the lunatic fringe and support the Continuing Resolution even though he knew he was committing political suicide.
Supporting McCarthy would have defanged the ultra-radicals and isolated them. But instead, within a week’s time, we could easily find that the inmates will be running the asylum. At that point the Ds are going to find out that supporting the devil they knew would have been way better than dealing with either of the devils now vying for the Speakership.
Deirdre LaMotte says
The whole Republican caucus is insane. Yeah, the “normal” ones say they support Ukraine or compromise, but they will not. Being “primaried” is ALL they care about, even those in Biden districts are fickle.
McCarthy had no problem throwing Ds under the bus numerous times, including the day after the
vote last Sunday. Please start focusing on the utter
madness of the GOP and the stupidity of trying to deal
rationally with toddler-adults.
These fascist are gerrymandered and will not be voted out until the majority of Americans care.
The GOP is controlled by people who care more about their ideals, which are fascist, than governing our nation.
Think about that.
Gren Whitman says
Kevin McCarthy proved himself untrustworthy to the Democrats.
1. After blaming Trump — correctly! — for the Jan. 6 assault on Capitol and Congress, McCarthy flip-flopped, rushed to Mar-a-Lago, sucked up to Trump, and continues to fawn.
2. He voted with other GOPs on Jan. 6 to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
3. Refused to accept an effective bi-partisan House committee to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection; then tried to discredit it.
4. Pushed right-wing legislative measures that Dems found detestable.
5. OKd the current GOP-led Biden impeachment inquiry on fabricated charges.
6. Reneged on his debt-limit agreement with Biden.
7. Recently claimed Dems wanted to shutter the government.
John Dean says
Thank you for your comment, an interesting perspective.
James Nick says
In January of this year, Vanity Fair published an article titled “Let’s Face It: Kevin McCarthy is Screwed”. It isn’t necessary to read the article. The prescient title pretty much nailed it. It describes how McCarthy had been lusting after the Speakership for a decade. All McCarthy ever wanted was to be Speaker, period. And the nihilists in the party knew it. His Faustian bargain with them turned him into a marionette. He may have held the gavel but they were pulling his strings. But McCarthy’s statements about trump in the immediate aftermath of Jan6, his bargaining on the debt limit, and then passing a CR show that at least he had some limits on how far he was willing to go to support the pyromaniacs in his conference.
Not so for Scalise and especially Jordan. On October 4 at the University of Minnesota Liz Cheney said “If they were to decide that Jim Jordan should be the Speaker of the House there would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected Republicans could be counted on to defend the Constitution.” She repeated that warning the next day at the University of Minnesota… “The notion that the Republican party is anywhere close to contemplating putting Jim Jordan into the position of Speaker of the House is something that tells you the level of risk we face in our democracy today.”
So in this context, explain again how it wouldn’t have been better for the Ds to marginalize Gaetz & Co by supporting McCarthy instead of now placing our democracy and Constitution at risk. Vengeance and retribution is what trump does. Strategic thinking is what the Ds should have done.