Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Sunday that her colleague, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), “has no sway” in the House after he announced his intentions to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from his leadership role.
Pelosi, who preceded McCarthy as speaker, was asked to respond on CNN’s “State of the Union” after Gaetz said McCarthy would face a motion to vacate this coming week after the House voted 335-91 to pass a short-term spending bill with the support of Democrats.
“You’re wasting your time on that guy because he has no sway in the House of Representatives,” Pelosi told anchor Jake Tapper, “except to get on TV and to raise money on the internet.”
Moments earlier, Gaetz told Tapper about his plan to attempt to remove McCarthy from the speakership in the coming days.
He accused McCarthy of breaching an “agreement” made in January that allowed McCarthy to become speaker after 15 rounds of voting and dealing with Democrats to “really blow past spending guardrails we’ve set up.” Gaetz also faulted McCarthy over what he called a “side deal” with Democrats over Ukraine aid.
Although the 45-day continuing resolution did not include money for helping Ukraine, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said he expects McCarthy to “advance a bill to the House floor for an up-or-down vote that supports Ukraine, consistent with his commitment to making sure that Vladimir Putin, Russia and authoritarianism are defeated.”
Under the House rules package approved for this session of Congress, only a single member is needed to trigger the process that could lead to a no-confidence vote in the speaker. For such a vote to succeed, a simple majority is required, meaning Democrats could join with a few disaffected Republicans to secure McCarthy’s ouster.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said on CNN she would vote to remove McCarthy as speaker.
During his appearance, Gaetz said the “only way Kevin McCarthy is speaker of the House at the end of this coming week is if Democrats bail him out.”
Pelosi, when asked what her advice to Democrats would be on a no-confidence vote, said, “Follow the leader,” referring to Jeffries.
The Democrat-led Senate approved the continuing resolution, after which President Joe Biden signed it ahead of the midnight deadline before there would have been a government shutdown. The stop-gap measure gives lawmakers more time to reach an agreement on spending the various facets of the federal government in the new fiscal year.
McCarthy, in touting the passage of the continuing resolution, said he signed the bill to “fund our troops, deliver emergency relief, and keep government open while Congress gets back to work through regular order.”
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