House braces for key vote to oust Speaker McCarthy

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy departs a House Republican conference meeting on Tuesday in Washington, DC.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy departs a House Republican conference meeting on Tuesday in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s allies and swing district Republicans railed against Rep. Matt Gaetz Tuesday morning — and bluntly warned that the dysfunction could put their majority at risk.

In interviews with CNN, they attacked Gaetz for throwing the House of Representatives into a state of paralysis and vowed to help McCarthy keep his job even if he lacks the votes to defeat Gaetz’s motion to oust the speaker.

“I think it’s a huge distraction. I think it’s a fool’s errand to be kind of moving in this direction. This country does not need any more drama right now. We just took it to the brink of a shutdown. … I think it’s counterproductive to what the GOP majority should be doing right now,” Rep. Steve Womack said.

Rep. Andy Barr had a similar warning. “I’m telling you it definitely puts the majority in jeopardy when you see disunity,” he said, adding, “That’s why this is so destructive.”

Rep. Erin Houchin told CNN that Gaetz is a “chaos agent.”

New York Republicans Marc Molinaro and Nick LaLota also piled onto Gaetz. 

“I don’t have tolerance for some pseudo-psycho political fetish. Instead, we have to continue to work on behalf of American people,” Molinaro told CNN. “It’s a total distraction. And once we get past today, we’re going to refocus on reigning in federal spending, border security and the issues and challenges facing the American people.”

LaLota added, “We’ll get through these next couple of days with Speaker McCarthy at the helm. And we’ll continue to good progress.”

When asked if he has reached out to Democrats, LaLota said no but that he “would expect that a decent number of Democrats would want to maintain decent order in the House and not be a part of this chaos.”

Rep. Darrell Issa said that during the GOP meeting, McCarthy got repeated standing ovations and public displays of support. 

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, told CNN that “very serious” bipartisan talks are happening among rank-and-file members about cutting a deal to save McCarthy’s speakership. But he didn’t know how many Democrats he could woo.

“I hope there’s 218 people that will reward bipartisanship,” Fitzpatrick said, adding that the speaker isn’t involved in the effort.

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