Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who was ousted as House speaker on Tuesday, said he does not regret any of his actions that rank-and-file conservatives say led to the historic vote to vacate the speakership.
“I don’t regret standing up for choosing governance over grievance. It is my responsibility. It is my job,” McCarthy said at a news conference following the vote. “I do not regret negotiating. Our government is designed to find compromise.”
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Lawmakers voted 216-210 to remove McCarthy from his position after eight Republicans joined all Democrats in a historic move against GOP leadership, leaving the House at a standstill until lawmakers can elect a new speaker. The vote came after weeks of threats to McCarthy from members of his right flank, particularly Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who filed the motion on Monday evening.
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) will serve as speaker pro tempore until a new speaker is elected. A source told the Washington Examiner that McHenry wants to have a candidate forum next Tuesday and an election for speaker that Wednesday.
Here are the five takeaways from McCarthy’s farewell speech that signal more tensions among Republicans moving forward.
McCarthy hits at Nancy Mace for her vote to vacate the speakership
Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-SC) reason for voting to remove McCarthy came down to broken promises regarding her bills, something McCarthy said was “not right.”
“I don’t go for that ‘I’ll vote for the bill, you do —’ that’s not well,” McCarthy said. “But if you have a problem with a bill, I want to help you. But I can’t sit there and write your entire bill and work it all the way through committee.”
“We just got her one bill out, and it came back, the other bill doing on guns, it just wasn’t working. She wanted to do something else; we did something else. I just don’t appreciate — I bite my lip, I let people say things that aren’t true, but it’s not right. It is not right,” he added.
McCarthy says Pelosi told him she’d have his back
McCarthy said he spoke to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) before he became speaker, letting her know he was having a problem getting the votes to obtain the speakership.
“She said, ‘What’s the problem?’ I said, ‘They want this one, one person can rule you out’ — she was the only speaker to have changed that rule,” McCarthy said. “I had the power to call the vote on her, but I never would — I lost some votes because of it. And she said, ‘Just give it to them. I’ll always back you up. I made the same offer to [John] Boehner and same thing to Paul because I believe in the institution.'”
Pelosi was absent from the vote to vacate McCarthy. She had traveled to California with the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein on her final journey home after dying on Friday at 90.
McCarthy takes aim at Gaetz and detractors
McCarthy said he viewed his position as speaker through the lens of “why do something for myself that could hurt the country,” but his eight Republican colleagues who voted against him did not have that same thought.
“I’m not quite sure those individuals are looking to be productive. It concerns me as a Republican based upon watching what they do,” McCarthy said, calling them out for holding up appropriations bills or voting against GOP-supported bills like border security.
“This country is too great for small visions of those eight,” he added.
When asked if there was anything he could have done differently to get the eight Republicans on his side, McCarthy said, “A lot of them I helped get elected, so I probably should have picked someone else.”
McCarthy took special aim at Gaetz, who accused him of making a “back deal” with Democrats to pass a continuing resolution over the weekend to fund the government temporarily, which he says is in direct violation of the speakership agreement brokered in January.
“You all know Matt Gaetz. You know it was personal. It had nothing to do about spending. It had nothing to do about — everything he accused somebody of, he was doing,” McCarthy said, citing Gaetz’s fundraising off of the motion to vacate.
“That’s not governing, that’s not becoming of a member of Congress. … It was all about his ethics, but that’s all right,” he added.
McCarthy knocks Democrats for voting to remove him
McCarthy took a shot at House Democrats, who all voted against his speakership but voted almost unanimously for the continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown.
“Saturday, I took a risk for the American public. Regardless of what anybody says, the Democrats did want that bill,” McCarthy said. “Yes, they pull a fire alarm. Yes, they do their conga line. Yes, they wanted to delay. But it was all for the American people.”
McCarthy said that if eight people and Democrats who said they wanted to keep the government open could throw him out as speaker, “I think you’ve got a real divide.”
He said the Democrats “hurt the institution” in their removal of Republicans from committees and their response to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“You can’t do the job — you have 96% of your entire conference, but eight people can partner with the whole other side. How do you govern?” McCarthy said of Democrats. “And for them to make a motion on me because I made a decision for the country that they agreed with, but they choose to do the other, that becomes a problem.”
McCarthy touts record as speaker and Republican leader
McCarthy expressed his pleasure at being able to serve as the 55th speaker of the House, saying, “This job was never about me.” Of his accomplishments, he said he was proud of his ability to reopen the Capitol after the COVID-19 pandemic and require members to come in person to vote. He also highlighted the GOP’s voting records and creation of bipartisan committees.
“I’ve been a part of a leadership team for quite some time. We’ve won two majorities. As leader, I’m proud of the fact we only gain races, only gained seats,” McCarthy said. “I’m proud that as a Republican leader, we elected more women, we elected more minorities, we expanded the base.”
He pointed to Republicans’ ability to flip seats in California and New York, two Democratic strongholds.
“We won in places they never thought we could win,” McCarthy said. “I intend to make sure that we gain and keep the majority in the next cycle as well.”
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When asked if he would remain in Congress, the ousted speaker said, “I’ll look at that.”
“If you have to lose for something,” he added, “I will always lose for the country. It’s a much better battle to have.”
