What to know about the historic removal of McCarthy as House speaker
- House Republicans will gather Oct. 11 to hold internal elections to nominate former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's replacement. The possible successors include members of his leadership team and some top conservative allies.
- House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, became the first candidate to say he is running, followed by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hern, R-Okla., has also suggested he may run.
- McCarthy was ousted from the speakership in a historic vote yesterday. Hours later, he announced he won't try to reclaim the position.
- It is the first time in U.S. history that a speaker of the House has been voted out of office. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., will serve as the temporary speaker under House rules.
Coverage on this live blog has ended. Click here for the latest updates.
How many votes will the next House speaker need to be elected?
It’s a question for any of the candidates hoping to succeed McCarthy as speaker of the House: How many votes do they need to win?
The speaker is elected by a majority of those in attendance and voting when the election happens on the House floor.
There are currently 433 House members — Democrat David Cicilline of Rhode Island and Republican Chris Stewart of Utah resigned in recent months. That means a majority of the House is 217 if every single one of its members votes that day.
If a member votes “present” instead of for a particular candidate, the vote does not count against the total number used to calculate a majority. So if 33 members were to vote “present” today in a floor vote, the total number voting would be 400, and a majority would be 201 members.
McCarthy was elected with 216 votes — 428 were cast in total: 216 for McCarthy and 212 for Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, and six lawmakers voted “present.”
The number of House members isn't expected to dip below 433 in the coming weeks unless a member dies or resigns unexpectedly. The special election to fill Cicilline's seat will be Nov. 7, and the election for Stewart's seat is scheduled for Nov. 21. Still, it's not uncommon for some lawmakers to be absent for other reasons, as some were yesterday during the vote to remove McCarthy as speaker.
The GOP armed its bazooka caucus. What could go wrong?
It was inevitable that giving Rep. Matt Gaetz the procedural bazooka he demanded would end in McCarthy's political annihilation.
For Gaetz — a 2020 election denier, a defender of the Jan. 6 insurrection and the subject of an ethics investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and more — rules seem to matter most when they benefit him. The animating tenet of his political ideology — a strain of the broader conservative bent against taxation and spending — is that the federal government works against the public interest because it is corrupt. Chaos feeds his narrative.
McCarthy’s substantive sins were avoiding a national default and a federal shutdown, which interfered with Gaetz’s ability to demonstrate that the government is broken. So Gaetz, R-Fla., used his procedural weapon — the “motion to vacate” — to do the next best thing: He aligned with Democrats to throw the House into a state of anarchy. For one day, at least, Gaetz and his seven followers ruled the 433-member House.
“To do this on the floor is embarrassing and does not give the American public much confidence in Republicans being able to govern,” former Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., said in a text message. “This small group just voted WITH the Democrats while ousting the speaker because the Democrats voted WITH the speaker and the majority of Republicans to keep the government open.”
DeSantis says Jordan and Scalise are 'both good guys'
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had positive things to say today about Scalise and Jordan when asked about their respective speaker bids, but he stopped short of saying who he would prefer to see in the top House post.
"I know both of those guys," DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, said of his former House colleagues. "They’re both good guys."
In his remarks to reporters at an event in Greenville, South Carolina, DeSantis spoke in broad terms about what the next speaker needs to do.
"You can’t just say, continue business as usual. You got to be somebody that understands we need a fundamentally different path here," he said.
DeSantis went on to say that GOP leaders are often out of step with their voters compared with Democrats.
"I think the Republican Party for a long time has had problems with leadership that’s not reflective of the voters that put them there. Whereas on the other side, the Democrat leadership is representative of where their voters are in a lot of issues."
House Democratic Leader Jeffries weighs in on McCarthy's ouster
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., issued a statement today on McCarthy — more than 24 hours after the California Republican was ousted as speaker.
“Since January, Kevin and I have had a respectful, communicative and forward-looking relationship. On many occasions, we strongly disagreed with each other. However, we agreed to disagree without being personally disagreeable in order to find common ground whenever possible,” Jeffries said.
"I wish Speaker McCarthy, his family and dedicated staff Godspeed as he begins the next chapter in his public service and professional journey."
Jeffries highlighted McCarthy's work to begin addressing artificial intelligence and an effort to form a select committee on strategic competition between the U.S. and China, urging the continuation of both initiatives.
In a statement yesterday, Jeffries said that Democrats would vote in favor of McCarthy's removal and called on his GOP colleagues "to end the House Republican Civil War."
Gaetz says either Jordan or Scalise would be better than McCarthy
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., today had nothing but good things to say about Reps. Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise when asked about their respective bids for House speaker.
“I am thrilled with them. I am certain that under the stewardship of either Mr. Scalise or Mr. Jordan, the House of Representatives will be in far better stead than we were with Mr. McCarthy," Gaetz told NBC News.
Asked what either lawmaker would do that McCarthy didn't, Gaetz said, "A budget."
He also said that Scalise or Jordan would pass appropriations bills that McCarthy had been unable to pass during his nine-month tenure.
Rep. Steve Womack endorses Steve Scalise for speaker
Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., said in an interview with "Meet the Press NOW" that he supports House Majority Leader Steve Scalise for speaker.
"I'm a Scalise guy," Womack said. "He's the next in charge. He's got an operation already built. He's been tried and he's been tested."
"I think we need the kind of leadership that Steve can bring us. There's no question about his conservative bonafides," Womack added. "He is an absolutely thoughtful conservative, and I think he has the potential to get McCarthy-style support within our conference."
GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito says 'egomaniac' Gaetz is 'getting in my way'
Rep. Anthony D'Esposito, R-N.Y., told Andrea Mitchell this afternoon on MSNBC that “an egomaniac named Matt Gaetz decided to take out personal issues with the speaker on the House floor."
“Now we have to deal with, over the next week, going to conference, finding new leadership, finding a new speaker, electing one, and then getting back to the people's business," D'Esposito said.
The New York Republican went on to say that Gaetz, R-Fla., is "getting in my way" of fulfilling duties to constituents.
“This is not what the people of the 4th Congressional District sent me here to do. They sent me here to govern, and that's exactly what I want to do. But Matt Gaetz is getting in my way," he said.
D'Esposito said that "egotistical maniac" Gaetz's moves to oust McCarthy were a "personal vendetta."
“What happened yesterday is literally going to put the American government to a halt until we find a speaker, and that should never happen again at the hands of one lunatic," D'Esposito said.
Rep. Garret Graves says he has no interest in a leadership position
Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., one of McCarthy’s top allies who helped negotiate his ascendancy to the speakership in January and the debt ceiling deal this year, said he has “no interest at all” in a leadership position.
"I enjoy doing the behind-the-scenes work. I love the policy. But no interest in" a leadership post, Graves told NBC News' Ryan Nobles.
Graves is not yet backing any of the GOP lawmakers who have formally declared their candidacy for speaker, and said it would be a “mistake” to commit right now given the tension in the caucus after yesterday's events.
“I think the first step at this point is actually letting folks go home and cool down a little bit. There’s some really raw emotions. I think if we hung around here right now you would probably see some folks breaking out in a fistfight,” he said.
Graves is among lawmakers who are calling for Republicans to re-examine their rules that allow for just one member to call for a vote to oust the speaker.
House adjourns until Friday morning
The House has adjourned until Friday at 10 a.m. ET. McHenry, who is the temporary speaker, took no questions from reporters outside of the House chamber.
Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin says McCarthy didn't ask Dems for help to bail him out
Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said in an interview on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" that McCarthy didn't ask Democrats for their help in saving his role as speaker.
"He didn’t ask for our help," Slotkin said, adding that some Democrats who have close relationships with Republicans were waiting for them to make a deal and McCarthy never got to that point.
Slotkin also criticized McCarthy for blaming Democrats for the position he and Republicans are in, arguing that Democrats just worked with GOP lawmakers to keep the government funded and prevent a shutdown.
“So, if I’m speaker of the House and I just depended on Democrats to pass a bipartisan bill for the good of the country...then I wouldn’t turn around the next day and try to blame Democrats for the situation that he was in."
