Today, Explained - We Need to Talk About Kevin

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

As House speaker, Kevin McCarthy worked with Democrats to keep the government open. Then Matt Gaetz worked with Democrats to get McCarthy fired. Semafor’s Jordan Weissmann returns to explain an unprecedented moment in American politics. This episode was produced by Jon Ehrens and Amanda Lewellyn, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard with help from Hady Mawajdeh, engineered by David Herman, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ahead on Today Explained, we need to talk about Kevin. Kevin! It was just two days ago on the show that Jordan Weissman from Semaphore said, So much of the infighting in the Republican conference over shutting down the government came down to how much Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Representative Matt Gaetz simply loathe each other. McCarthy has suggested at points that it actually has to do with an ethics investigation into gays that's going on that McCarthy has refused

to try and intervene in. Gates is being investigated in Congress over potential sexual impropriety. And now, two days later, Kevin McCarthy is speaker no more. On this vote, the yeas are 216, the nays are 210.

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The house will be in order. The clerk may call the roll. Today, yay. Explained, yay. Take me back to where this begins, Jordan. I believe it's in January when Kevin McCarthy wins the speakership, right? Yes. In order to win his gavel, Kevin McCarthy had to make a number of significant concessions to the hard right of his party. The key one, it turned out, was restoring a rule on what is known as the motion to vacate the chair. McCarthy agreed to allow any single member of the House of Representatives to file such a motion

at any given moment, just bring a snap no-confidence vote, essentially. And that kind of became this just sword hanging over his head. And that was the intention. Conservatives wanted him to have to fear for his job at any time so he would stay in line with other parts of their agreement. Now, apparently when this deal was made, Gates promised that this would probably never actually have to be used. He would never actually have to file the motion, that it was just sort of an insurance policy. That obviously turned out not to be the case. After McCarthy won his speakership, the next crucial moment in this story came with the debt ceiling deal earlier this year. During that showdown, McCarthy at first passed a party line

bill with House Republicans that was sort of a Christmas tree for the right flank of his party, right? It had all the goodies that they wanted tucked underneath it. But when he finally had to sit down with President Biden and hammer out a compromise that could pass both the House and the Senate and be signed into law, the final pact was a much more modest set of cuts and didn't have all the conservative priorities that people like Matt Gaetz really wanted and that many people in the House Freedom Caucus really wanted. And this infuriated some of the hard right members of his party, and particularly Gaetz, who said, now that you've done this, I'm taking that gun off the mantle. I'm going to file the motion to vacate. We're going to bring this to a vote and see if you remain speaker.

I think the debt limit deal was a terrible deal. And that's one of the reasons it really was the original sin of the McCarthy speakership. And it's one of the reasons I seek to vacate the chair now. And McCarthy's response to that this weekend was bring it on. My point is bring it on. Let's get over with. Let's get this over. And let's get focused on what the American people want. Securing our border, ending the wasteful spending, and actually achieving everything. Okay, so tenuous speakership to begin with, followed by debt ceiling deal in the spring

that divides the party, and then shutdown resolution this weekend that further divides Republicans. What does Kevin McCarthy do when it seems clear this vote is coming to save his skin. Well, that's the funny part. It seems like not much. It's sort of. So what became clear fairly quickly was that McCarthy was going to need support from moderate Democrats in order to survive this. Reporters started doing informal whip counts of how many Republicans were going to vote to boot him from office. By the time we were heading into Tuesday, it seemed clear that yes, unless Kevin McCarthy could find some Democrats who are willing to back him, he was not going to keep his gavel. That led to a lot of speculation that, hey, maybe he'll try to strike some sort of a deal. Maybe it'll be about Ukraine. Maybe it'll be about the budget. Who

knows? That doesn't really appear to have happened. In the morning, he went on CNBC, and he said, they have asked for nothing, and I am not going to provide anything. The Democrats are going to have their caucus. They're going to decide what they're going to do and we will live with whatever happens. I guess he tried to pull a Michael Corleone, but he was the one with a gun to his head. My offer is this, nothing. So it was a little bit of a strange situation. Democrats were deeply unhappy with that situation. You know, this is a man who they already very much distrusted.

There was not a lot of love lost for Kevin McCarthy, even though he had struck these bipartisan deals. It seemed like his expectation was that Democrats should be the good soldiers who keep him in office basically for the sake of governance. That, yes, he's willing to keep the machinery of Congress running. He's willing to keep the government open. And that should be enough for Democrats to support him so we don't plunge into dysfunction. It's not a crazy argument, but you have to think about it from the perspective of Democrats who've been furious at him for months and months and months.

Nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. And why should we? He has broken his commitment over and over again. And it's not just the deal with President Biden. It's not just the Ukraine funding, which apparently was also a deal, but then it wasn't a deal on, you know, unless we secure the border. It's also going back to January 6th. So then they vote. The U.S. Congress, for a few hours yesterday, felt a lot like the United Kingdom's parliament. How did this all go down? So there were two votes. There was a procedural vote, and then there was the real vote to remove McCarthy. Eleven Republicans and all Democrats said, yes, we're going to move forward with this.

The fact that there are 11 Republicans is more than enough than what is needed to oust McCarthy. And at this point, it is clear that unless something major happens in the next hour, Democrats are not coming to help him. So after the procedural vote, Republicans had to debate the motion to remove McCarthy amongst themselves. And so you get this series of very impassioned speeches. We no longer value loyalty, integrity, competence, or collaboration. Instead, we have descended to a place where clicks, TV hits, and the never-ending quest for the most mediocre taste of celebrity drives decisions and encourages juvenile behavior

that is so far beneath this esteemed body. Part of what you saw was the fury at Matt Gaetz. The noise is those who are causing chaos for their own personal benefit while ignoring the needs of their constituents and this country, grinding our work here to a halt. So Matt Gaetz had been banished to the Democratic side. She doesn't even go here. McCarthy's allies and mainstream Republicans felt that Gates had engineered this for almost entirely personal reasons that, as McCarthy said, that had to do with an ethics complaint

against him that was sort of the source of this grudge he has against McCarthy. The language was heated, to say the least. And I don't have tolerance for some pseudo-psychopolitical fetish. And so you got this sense of you were watching the Republican Party kind of crack up live before your eyes. They couldn't believe this was really happening to them, that really this small clique of members was going to bring down a speaker who overall was actually quite popular within their party. Mr. Speaker, my friend from Oklahoma says that my colleagues and I who don't support Kevin McCarthy would plunge the house and the country into chaos. Chaos is Speaker McCarthy.

As everyone was watching this, it was a little hard to know how to feel about it because McCarthy was widely expected to keep fighting this out. Once they removed him officially, they were going to have to pick a new speaker. And there was nothing saying that McCarthy couldn't run again. And in fact, he was expected to run again, kind of the way he had sat through 15 votes in January to become speaker the first time around. And so even after the House officially voted to remove him. Which has never happened before in the history of the Republic. Never happened before. Everyone was sort of sitting there going,

okay, this is halftime in the ballgame, or maybe just the first quarter. And then Kevin McCarthy announces that he will not seek the speakership. And Matt Gaetz, who so many people had sort of written off as a attention-seeking clown, that ultimately going to lose this fight and maybe get ejected from the Republican conference in the process instead had won. The reason Kevin McCarthy went down today is because nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. Kevin McCarthy has made multiple contradictory promises. And when they all came due, he lost votes of people who maybe don't even ideologically agree with me on everything.

Kevin McCarthy is something of a relentless optimist. It would obviously take a relentless optimist to endure 15 votes to become the Speaker of the House of Representatives. How's he doing in the face of this historic embarrassment? So, it's a little bit hard to tell how he's doing right now, but I think my answer would be not great. So I may have lost a vote today, but as I walk out of this chamber, I feel fortunate to have served the American people. I leave the speakership with a sense of pride, accomplishment, and yes, optimism. After he told his party he was not going to run again for Speaker, McCarthy came out and just gave this wild press conference that lasted for about an hour, where he just veered from one emotion to the next. At times, he was laughing and joking.

At other times, he was shouting and kind of lecturing the press. He seemed incredibly melancholy at moments. I don't regret my efforts to build coalitions and find solutions. I was raised to solve problems, not create them. And he said that he thought that the next speaker really needed to eliminate this rule that allows any member to bring a snap vote to take down a speaker. So on the one hand, he bemoaned the fact that Democrats didn't back him in his moment of need, even though he didn't really offer them anything to do so. He thought he was still owed that. At the same time, he understood and talked about the kind

of dysfunction that seems to be crippling his own party. And no, he did not seem too happy by the end of it, even though he also, I think it was helpful that he got to emote. You know, if you have to lose for something, I will always lose for the country. It is a much better battle to have. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family, and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos

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Jordan, what happens next? Well, first and foremost, Republicans need to pick a new leader. There's going to be a speaker election next week. There's going to be a candidate forum on Tuesday, and then there will be a vote on Wednesday. So we should know relatively soon who the, you know, next human sacrifice for the Republican Party is going to be. I mean, you know, the joke is sort of who on earth would even want this job, right?

But pretty quickly, candidates have lined up and there's very obvious interest in becoming the next head of the party, even though this party tends to guillotine whoever's in charge. Who are the potential successors? So the number one option at the moment is the number two Republican in the House, Steve Scalise.

He's the House Majority Leader, is his title. And even back in January, when McCarthy was having some trouble becoming Speaker, and it was unclear if he'd be able to pull it out, Scalise was often talked about as the next option. No one can really tell you how he's that different than McCarthy ideologically, but he's just a bit more popular and well-liked. And a big part of that is he's widely respected because he was shot and gravely injured during a congressional baseball game several years ago. The lone gunman sending a bullet into the left hip of Louisiana Congressman and Republican House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. You know, in a literal sense, he's a survivor.

You know, he came back to the House of Representatives, the floor to, you know, standing ovation from both sides of the aisle. So I am definitely a living example that miracles really do happen. Doesn't he also have cancer? He does have cancer right now. He has blood cancer, and he has made it a point to say he feels great. The good news is the cancer has dropped dramatically because of the success of the chemotherapy attacking the cancer. He feels like he's ready to serve if necessary. And he's known as, you know,

a reliable conservative, but also sort of a back slapper who just gets along with everyone, which oddly was also McCarthy's reputation. So, you know, becoming speaker can kind of shred that. In the meantime, he is sort of a well-liked individual who even people like Matt Gaetz has said would be an acceptable successor. Can he get 218 votes? That's the magic number, if I recall correctly. I hesitate to say. No one is absolutely sure who can get 218 votes. And it might be problematic that he has been part of this leadership team under McCarthy that has ticked off a lot of people. On the other hand, it might also play to his advantage that him and McCarthy didn't always get along so well. There was reporting that McCarthy kind of sidelined him on some issues. So he's had a little bit of distance from unpopular decisions. What happens if no one can get 218 votes? You just keep voting. You got to pick someone. At some point, you just keep going. There's got to be a speaker or you're not going

to be able to consider bills. And in 45 days, we got to pass a budget. You know, this temporary spending bill they passed only lasts for a month and a half. So, you know, we got to pick a speaker by then who can keep the wheels turning. Is there any chance that the Democrats who played a pivotal role in all of this could somehow take the House? That's not in the cards, is it? I don't think so. The Democrats kind of got cute about that on Tuesday. There was a lot of talk about how Republicans should join them, that they were like making bipartisan overtures to the moderates. But I don't think that's really going anywhere. It seems like the decision by Democrats not to back McCarthy has really, really ticked off the moderate Republican faction.

There's this group called the Problem Solvers Caucus. They are sort of the best known of sort of the moderate bipartisan caucuses in the House. There's now talk that they might dissolve, that the Republican members of it might just leave because of what's gone down. So that kind of gives you a sense of the mood. I don't think Republicans have much of a desire to suddenly cross the aisle. So no, I doubt that we're going to see Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. Getting rid of the Speaker of the House, the newly appointed, still fresh Republican Speaker of the House, who took over after Nancy Pelosi's second tenure in the office, is a big deal. It's a big win for the Democrats. But are Democrats here partly to blame

for advancing a particular chaos in Congress? Because having a speakerless House of Representatives is not good for America. Things aren't happening. So this was McCarthy's argument, right? That Democrats should back him for the sake of governance, that he had demonstrated that he was willing to buck the right flank of his party in order to keep the government open and do the right thing and work with Democrats when necessary so that Congress didn't fall into complete dysfunction. And Democrats felt differently because, as discussed, they just were not a fan of McCarthy and did not feel like they could trust him at that point on any given issue. Personally, I am curious about what incentives this creates for the next speaker. And it's a little bit hard to say, right?

Because whoever gets the job next has just watched Kevin McCarthy get his head chopped off for working with Democrats, right? They have been warned. That is a capital offense in the eyes of members of their party who they will have to rely on in order to get their job and keep their job. So on the one hand, you could see this creating even more partisan gridlock. On the other hand, someone has to keep the government open. Whoever is speaker next is going to have to strike a deal with the Senate, which is run by Democrats, and the White House.

They're going to have to make some sort of agreement. So there's going to be compromise no matter what. Hakeem Jeffries and co. might be looking at this and thinking, like, they're going to have to come back to us in the end no matter, regardless. So there's no reason to keep McCarthy around. He doesn't offer us anything. The next guy won't. One other possibility is that this may end up being kind of the moment that Republicans get this out of their system. It's like, okay, Matt Gaetz has his scalp.

He took down a speaker. Is he going to plunge his party into chaos a second time? Is he going to be able to get seven other members to repeat this exercise? It doesn't feel likely, but then again, it's hard to make predictions. What kind of precedent does all this set for House majorities of the future, Jordan? It's a really interesting question to ponder. To answer it, you really have to think about the kind of separate sets of incentives that Democrats and Republicans face right now. Democrats typically just don't do this. They sort of get in line for the most part, much to the frustration of some people on the political left.

Just as there are members who challenge her conclusions, who disagree with her, so do we from time to time. But that does not mean that there is a fundamental fracture or a dehumanizing going on within our caucus. Nancy Pelosi led the Democratic Party for decades and never really faced super serious challenges to her authority. And part of that was because she was very good at her job. She was a very skilled tactician and manager, but also because Democrats kind of want to pass bills. They don't get rewarded for chaos.

They just don't. There's not a lot of appetite for that among Democratic voters. That's not the case of Republicans. Republicans face a primary electorate that rewards them for just being, quote, fighters. One way to look at this is that Gates' success here just showed the next generation of crazy fighters that, yeah, you can bring down a speaker. With that said, going back to where we started in January of 2023, when it took 15 votes for McCarthy to become speaker, I believe back then he said something like, you know, now that we've been through this, I can govern, you know, like we're ready to govern.

We've been through the hardest part and we came out successfully. Obviously, he misjudged his strength. Was this kind of destined to happen? This is a historic moment in American politics. But how surprising is this actually? So this is like the least surprising surprise. When McCarthy first became Speaker, it was widely assumed that he was in trouble from the get-go, that he was going to be a weak Speaker, he would not be able to govern despite his bowing to the contrary. It was just like, how are you going to handle this zoo, right, where people are trying to lop off your head from the very beginning. What made people think he might survive was the debt ceiling deal, where he managed to strike a

compromise with the president, get it through the House. And initially, it didn't look like he was facing any significant challenge to his leadership. There was not an immediate effort to depose him. I wrote and other people wrote a bunch of takes along the lines of, hey, maybe Washington underestimated Kevin McCarthy. As we got deeper and deeper into the government shutdown showdown, it became obvious that, oh, no, McCarthy might really be in trouble, that he really is going to face a challenge, that there is going to be a vote on his leadership and he might not survive it. So in the end, the obvious take, the conventional wisdom that prevailed at the very beginning of his speakership, is what turned out to be correct. It just, there was a moment where it seemed like maybe he was going to surprise everyone.

Jordan Weissman is the Washington editor at Semaphore. You can read him at semaphore.com. Our program today was produced by Amanda Llewellyn and John Ahrens. We were edited by Matthew Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, with help from Hadi Mawagdi, and mixed by David Herman and Patrick Boyd. I'm Sean Ramos from this episode of Today Explained is over. Yay.