Kevin McCarthy<\/a> has been toppled in a right-wing revolt – the first time ever that a US House of Representatives Speaker has lost a no-confidence vote. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final tally was 216-210 to remove the congressman as leader of the Republican majority in the lower chamber of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardliners in his party voted against him after he struck a deal with Senate Democrats to fund government agencies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no clear successor to oversee the House Republican majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress has just over 40 days to agree on a deal to avoid another potential government shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida Republican Matt Gaetz, a Trump ally, filed a rarely used procedural tool known as a motion to vacate on Monday night to oust Mr McCarthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He accused the Speaker of making a secret deal with the White House to continue funding for Ukraine, amid negotiations to avert a partial government shutdown at the weekend. Mr McCarthy denies it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a private meeting of Republican politicians on Tuesday evening after losing his job, Mr McCarthy told colleagues he did not plan to run for Speaker again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He later took aim at his political nemesis, Mr Gaetz, accusing him of attention-seeking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You know it was personal,” Mr McCarthy told a news conference, “it had nothing to do with spending.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said fundraising emails sent by Mr Gaetz amid the infighting were “not becoming of a member of Congress”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hardliners who ousted him “are not conservatives”, Mr McCarthy added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He only became Speaker in January after a gruelling 15 rounds of voting in the chamber as Mr Gaetz and other right-wingers refused to support him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To win over those hardliners Mr McCarthy agreed to make it possible for a single member to put forward a motion to oust him, which is exactly what Mr Gaetz ultimately did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr McCarthy was supported by 210 Republicans but eight voted against him in Tuesday’s vote, joining all Democrat members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One vote against Mr McCarthy that surprised many came from a moderate Republican from South Carolina, Nancy Mace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said afterwards: “I am looking for a Speaker who will tell the truth to the American people, who will be honest and trustworthy with Congress, with both parties.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries had said in a letter to colleagues that he would not provide the votes needed to rescue Mr McCarthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a left-wing Democrat from the north-western US state of Washington, said before the vote: “Let them wallow in their pigsty of incompetence.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The packed chamber – which Republicans control by a 221-212 majority – was mostly silent as members awaited the result of the roll call vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The office of Speaker of the House is hereby declared vacant,” said Arkansas Republican Steve Womack with a bang of his gavel, to audible gasps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier in the day the former president, Donald Trump, said on social media that the party should be “fighting the Radical Left Democrats” instead of each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

North Carolina Republican Patrick McHenry, who supported Mr McCarthy, is now the interim Speaker. He put the House in recess for a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is unclear if he will have the full powers of the office, or merely administrative powers and the ability to supervise a new election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rules do not state how long a person could fill in as an interim, though a vote on a new Speaker is planned for 11 October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louisiana Republican Steve Scalise and Minnesota Republican Tom Emmer have been mentioned as potential replacements for Mr McCarthy. Neither has expressed any interest in the role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that President Joe Biden is hoping the House would quickly elect a new Speaker, and noted that the “challenges facing our nation will not wait”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last two Republican Speakers – Paul Ryan and John Boehner – left Congress after repeated tangles with their more conservative colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The so-called motion to vacate had only previously been used twice in the past century to remove a Speaker – in 2015 and 2010 – though never successfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

READ MORE HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin McCarthy has been toppled in a right-wing revolt – the first time ever that a US House of Representatives Speaker has lost a no-confidence vote.  The final tally was 216-210 to remove the congressman as leader of the Republican majority in the lower chamber of Congress. Hardliners in his party voted against him after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":299649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25,23],"tags":[19456,19457],"class_list":["post-299634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-republican-party","tag-us-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/McCarthy2.png?fit=493%2C337&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299634"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299689,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299634\/revisions\/299689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}