The Downfall of Kevin McCarthy

In the 234-year history of the House of Representatives, its members had never voted to fire their leader in the middle of a term. They did so yesterday.

The toppling of Speaker Kevin McCarthy creates an uncertain future for Congress. It’s unclear who will be the next speaker, although it apparently won’t be McCarthy; he said last night that he would not run again. It’s also unclear what will happen with several major issues, including U.S. support for Ukraine and a potential government shutdown next month.

In today’s newsletter, we walk through two things that we do know the morning after McCarthy’s firing. For much more, you can read The Times’s main story on yesterday’s events, as well as this explanation of what happens next.

Lesson 1: House Republicans have fallen into chaos with little precedent.

McCarthy lost his job because eight House Republicans voted against him yesterday, mostly as punishment for his working with Democrats to pass a bill keeping the government open into next month. Those Republicans, led by Matt Gaetz of Florida, wanted to use a potential shutdown to insist on large spending cuts.

But that was never going to happen. Democrats control the Senate and the White House. Even many House Republicans don’t favor the cuts that the hard-right faction does. Nonetheless, a small Republican faction decided that a bill to keep the government open was a fireable offense for their leader.

“Think long and hard before you plunge us into chaos,” Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and a McCarthy ally, told his House colleagues before the vote yesterday, “because that’s where we’re headed if we vacate the speakership.”

“Chaos is Speaker McCarthy,” Gaetz replied. “Chaos is somebody who we cannot trust with their word.”

McCarthy, speaking before the vote, said: “If you throw a speaker out that has 99 percent of their conference, that kept government open and paid the troops, I think we’re in a really bad place for how we’re going to run Congress.”

The unprecedented nature of a speaker’s midterm dismissal highlights the radicalism of parts of today’s Republican Party. It’s also a contrast to the unity of Democrats when they controlled the House under Speaker Nancy Pelosi in recent years.

Lesson 2: Democrats took a gamble by not saving McCarthy.

House Democrats could have helped keep McCarthy in the job. Instead, 208 Democrats voted unanimously against him. Combined with the eight breakaway Republicans, the Democrats caused McCarthy to lose the referendum that Gaetz called, 216 to 210.

McCarthy has certainly given Democrats reason to oppose him. He depended on their votes to pass a spending bill last week but barely gave them time to read the bill before calling for a vote — and then claimed on television, falsely, that Democrats were the ones who wanted a shutdown.

Perhaps most significantly, McCarthy has made excuses for extremism, including Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and the violent rhetoric of a few House Republicans. Ilhan Omar, a progressive House Democrat from Minnesota, yesterday called McCarthy “a threat to our democracy.” Abigail Spanberger, a centrist from Virginia, said he had “excused the inexcusable time and time and time again.”

The spectacle of Republican infighting does offer some potential political advantages for the Democrats. From their perspective, as Carl Hulse, The Times’s chief Washington correspondent, told us, “a little chaos is good.” Voters may end up blaming Republicans for the current tumult. (Politico explains how infighting could hurt Republicans’ chances in 2024.)

Democrats also argue that it is not their job to rescue Republicans from internal discord. “It is now the responsibility of the G.O.P. members to end the House Republican Civil War,” Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, wrote before yesterday’s vote.

Still, McCarthy’s downfall brings risks for Democrats.

He managed both to keep the government open last week and to raise the debt limit this past spring. He did so by finding compromise with Democrats, however unpleasant the process was, and by maintaining the support of most Republicans. His successor may not be able to do so, risking economic and political turmoil.

The war in Ukraine is one example of the stakes. U.S. aid will decline significantly unless Congress passes a new bill to help Ukraine fight Russia. The next speaker may be less willing to help Ukraine than McCarthy was.

“I think Democrats would benefit by a more functional House,” Laura Blessing of Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute told us. “They have a lot that they need to get done.”

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