Congressman Kevin McCarthy Is Out
The Republican Majority in the House is shrinking
A few days ago, Congressional idiot Matt Gaetz fretted about the Republicans’ dwindling majority in the House. With George Santos being expelled from Congress and being replaced with a Democrat by the New York governor, Gaetz feared the numbers might shrink even more.
“Congressman Bill Johnson of Ohio has taken a college university presidency that can knock us down to two. And I don’t really think Kevin McCarthy is sticking around long,” he said.
He wasn’t wrong. A day after Kevin McCarthy’s biggest ally in the House, Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), announced that he would not seek reelection, McCarthy announced today that he would retire from Congress, effective at the end of the year.
McCarthy lost his position as House Speaker a few months ago — the first Speaker ever to be ousted — leaving the House without a Speaker for three weeks before the Republicans found a replacement in Mike Johnson.
California Governor Gavin Newsom will have to hold a special election to replace McCarthy, who represents one of the few safe conservative districts in California. Before the special election can be held, however, the Republican majority will grow even smaller ahead of what will be another major budget battle in January. (Contrary to what Matt Gaetz claimed, however, Bill Johnson says he will not leave Congress for a few more months).
Gaetz also complained in that interview with Charlie Kirk that, “We got a bunch of these octogenarians in our conference. If God forbid, any of them were to cross the Rainbow Bridge, we would be in a situation where we could literally lose the majority because we were so eager to throw George Santos out before even being convicted.”
With that in mind, one has to wonder if McCarthy’s decision to leave early is a poke in the eye of his Republican colleagues, who will be left scrambling with one fewer vote until his replacement can be elected. His abrupt decision to leave certainly feels like a Fuck You to all those who stabbed him in the back during the Speaker drama and who will be left holding the bag of mess
Guess he finally got tired of his face getting eaten. Has no one to blame but himself for the collapse of his congressional career but also lacks the self-awareness to recognize that. This is the end result of hitching your wagon to Trump - it happens to all of his sycophants and yet they never learn. He thought that by pandering to the MAGA faction he could control them, but fails to realize that chaos is the point. At any point these guys could've slowed down if not stopped the MAGA train, but instead leaned into cynical opportunism in the naked pursuit of power and its biting them all in the ass
Bring on House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries already and lets see some shit get done. The GOP majority hasn't produced even one piece of meaningful legislation.