When US House Speaker and California Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy made a deal with the House Freedom Caucus to get the votes to become Speaker there was a clause that made it simpler to oust him from the job.
And now he could be booted from the job just months after starting after he blamed other members of his Party for not issuing a budget proposal, The Washington Examiner reported.
A New York Times article released earlier this week detailed private conversations between McCarthy and some of his allies that he did not have confidence in top GOP members to deliver a budget proposal. That report prompted criticism from several Republicans, who argued the comments undermine GOP influence and open the party up to accusations of infighting before a crucial election cycle.
McCarthy specifically hit out against House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX), telling his colleagues he did not have confidence they could finalize a budget proposal, according to the outlet. The House speaker also said he views Scalise as “ineffective” and unable to take hard positions.
Some Republican lawmakers accused McCarthy of using the pair as scapegoats to cover up his own failure to release a budget proposal, pointing to stalled negotiations between the House speaker and President Joe Biden over the debt ceiling.
“The agreements made by Speaker McCarthy, among other things, is to begin the ten-year balanced budget NOW and with his initiatives & directives”, South Carolina Republican Rep. Ralph Norman said “It’s HIS responsibility to get the 218 votes to ensure our nation’s financial security JUST AS HE DID IN SECURING THE 218 votes for speaker”.
“The members I’ve spoken with are just stunned by his rebuking of his budget chair, and certainly of our leadership”, one anonymous Republican said to Axios.
“I can’t imagine [he will last an entire term]”, another said.
Budget Chair and Texas Representative Jodey Arrington and Representative Steve Scalise issued a statement that stopped short of criticizing the Speaker.
“Our nation is staring down the barrel of a debt crisis and my budget committee colleagues and I are focused on one thing: passing a budget that will stop this reckless spending and restore fiscal sanity in Washington before it’s too late”, the pair said.
The Speaker would not confirm that there was infighting with his Republican colleagues but did not deny that the conversations happened.
But Speaker McCarthy has been busy with other matters.
McCarthy declared that Congress will take action after former President Donald Trump appeared in Manhattan on Tuesday for his arraignment in the case brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 charges regarding allegations that he falsified business records related to adult film star Stormy Daniels’ hush-money case. Donald Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in a case involving his purported role in hush money payments to Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, allegedly to keep Daniels quiet about an affair the two of them had in 2006.
McCarthy voiced his frustration and vowed to hold Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accountable.
“Alvin Bragg is attempting to interfere in our democratic process by invoking federal law to bring politicized charges against President Trump, admittedly using federal funds, while at the same time arguing that the peoples’ representatives in Congress lack jurisdiction to investigate this farce. Not so. Bragg’s weaponization of the federal justice process will be held accountable by Congress”, McCarthy tweeted.
The Manhattan judge presiding over the case against Trump warned the former president to not make statements that could possibly lead to violence. However, the judge did not issue a gag order, which would have limited Trump’s ability to speak about the case.
Judge Juan Merchan said that Trump and other witnesses that prosecutors intend to call should “refrain from making statements likely to incite violence or create civil unrest”.
“Prosecutor Christopher Conroy raised Trump’s recent use of incendiary language on his Truth Social media platform, highlighting a number of the posts during the proceeding and handing the judge several examples printed on paper. Because of the posts, Conroy said, prosecutors are working with Trump’s attorneys to draw up a protective order that would bar the ex-prez from posting sensitive information turned over to his legal team as part of the discovery process in the case”, the New York Post reported.
“The order currently being hashed out would bar Trump from providing the discovery material to any third party and from posting it on social media. Trump would also be required to review any shared sensitive material in the presence of his attorneys, and would not be allowed to take physical copies of such documents with him”, the outlet added.
