2y ago

Democrats say they won’t save McCarthy Speakership

House Democrats on Tuesday said they do not plan to save Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) when a vote on ousting him from the top spot hits the floor later in the day.

Emerging from a more than two-hour meeting in the Capitol, House Democrats said they will vote to oust McCarthy from the Speakership.

“We are following our leader and we are not saving Kevin McCarthy,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters.

Asked if a decision was made as a caucus not to support McCarthy, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) responded, “yes.”

This news follows McCarthy's statement that he won't give Dems anything to save his Speakership.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4235572-mccarthy-says-he-wont-give-democrats-anything-in-exchange-for-support-as-speaker/

50 comments

- when McCarthy isn't in power any more and complains about the Democrat majority, they can just respond by throwing his own words back at him.
  Didn't Rep. Katie Porter already throw his words back at him and point out his hypocrisy about starting an impeachment without a floor vote?
  Same for McConnell when RBG died and was hastily replaced right before an election when Obama was denied an appointment with nearly a year left in his term. His hypocrisy was similarly called out.
  In both cases, they don't care. I'm not saying we shouldn't call it out every time, but we shouldn't expect it to be some kind of "gotcha" moment either. They're completely unfazed by it, and the people who vote them in don't seem to care.
  If I had a point when I started typing this out, I've lost it. lol
  
  Having your words thrown back at you is a shaming tactic. They have no shame
- Constituents have been saying this for decades, but every time one suggests anything left of milquetoast, BuT mUh BoTh SiDeS move-to-the-right-againers complain we’re not compromising. 🤷🏽‍♀️
- The issue is that a simple majority is pointless in US politics a lot of the time if the other party is OK with obstructing government and not compromising. You need a supermajority in both houses and the presidency to really get stuff done if the other party won't play ball due to the asinine filibuster rules. And if you don't have the presidency you need 2/3 in both chambers of congress to overrun the president's veto. Which the Republicans know and count on to keep democratic legislation stymied forever. The only way democrats gets shit done is with incredible concessions even when they are the majority.
  But with how modern republicans are trying to fuck it all up and play ~~hardball~~ stupidball that doesn't seem to be working either. They aren't willing to concede or compromise on anything permanent.
  
  Filibuster is only a Senate rule. A simple majority in the House can pass things with little the minority can do.
This news follows McCarthy's statement that he won't give Dems anything to save his Speakership.
K-Mc: I offer you nothing.
D's: Okay.
- This right here is the most pertinent point I think:
  "This is someone who reneged on the budget deal with the President..." [Schiff] added.
  It doesn't matter if McCarthy promised the world to the Dems or not- the fact that he ignored the deal he agreed to with President Biden during the debt ceiling (hostage) negotiations means they have no reason to help him. Guess bipartisanship being anathema to Republicans is gonna bite Kevin now. Hope you all have enough popcorn.
  
  Who knew politicians were so bad at politics? Every Civilization player knows you need to offer things and honor your agreements to get cooperation. Maybe I should send Kevin a copy.
  
  And we don’t negotiate with terrorists.
  
  He didn't ignore it, he couldn't get the FreeDumb Caucus to vote for it even though they should have. NO ONE can control those idiots, they need to be removed from office.
- He seems to think that democrats should be kissing his feet for him not being Gaetz. Like sir, we know that you have too much discord among your ranks to hold your position. You can be a centrist trying to create a fair balance with the democrats or you can lose your position.
An under-appreciated point here is that with McCarthy gone, the math for somebody else to become Speaker is that much harder, and the odds of that person needing to rely on Democratic votes - and to make major, major concessions to get them - commensurately higher; in other words, just because McCarthy wouldn't make a deal with Democrats to remain Speaker, it doesn't mean that somebody else won't eventually make one to become Speaker.
- But any deal with a Republican can't be trusted. It's better to hold out and vote to remove McCarthy and not confirm another Republican. Literally all of them will break their word.
  Democrats just need to make Republicans look completely inept and block everything but the budget. Republicans are not going to pass anything good anyway.
  
  A deal to get Democrats to vote for a Republican would have to include shared committee leadership.
  
  Well that's why they demand the Republicans hold up their end first - the would-be Speaker and a couple of his/her allies sign a discharge petition to implement whatever it is they agreed to, and only after that passes do the Democrats support them.
- Part of me is holding out for some kind of unity coalition government but that will never happen in US politics.
- Is it basically a "hung parliament" situation where nobody has a majority? Democrats vs "republicans" vs maga.
  
  Yep, exactly.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) “definitively” called for a vote against any procedural motion to delay the motion to vacate, Punchbowl News reports.
He also instructed Democrats to vote to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-NY).
The Washington Post says Democrats will not vote present and the caucus is unified.
See ya later Kev
Remember, Nancy Pelosi had an identically small House majority over the last two years and this stuff didn’t happen. This is not a “both sides” phenomenon; the two parties are not mirror images of each other.
- Yep! Hakeem Jeffries can watch the GQP circle down the toilet a while, and only offer a lifeline when they're almost drowned.
This news follows McCarthy’s statement that he won’t give Dems anything to save his Speakership.
Ah yes, the power play of showing up to the negotiation, slamming the door, and walking away. Bold move, let's see how it plays out.
They should just elect a Democratic speaker. Republicans only work as contrarians anyway, and they should realize that having Pelosi to hate on and not having to actually have consistent policy positions within their party because they aren't in leadership was a gift to their style of politics.
- That would be an interesting ploy. Conservative media could blame the democrat speaker while the republicans continue to block everything. But would the democrats even bother running someone knowing that is how it would play out?
The Republicans basically boiled themselves down to shitty business people and criminals. None of them know how to negotiate because they are simply shit bags, that’s just what they are. Simple. Shitty. GOP.
I was hoping the article would go into who is angling to replace McCarthy. Who would want the job?
- Makes me wonder if Beavis would want it, since he's pushing for his removal, but who knows. It was a collosal pain to even get McCarthy in the seat, so I'm thinking it's going to be a long process
  
  I'd watch Matt Gaetz get repeatedly embarrassed just like I watched it happen to Kevin McCarthy.
  Gotta appreciate the little things.
  
  Gym Jordan's Congressman Beavis, right?
  Matt Gaetz is obviously Congressman Butthead.
  With Jellyfish McCarthy about to lose his job, who else would want to be up there? He'd have to either kiss up to Beavis & Butthead as well as Marjorie Traitor Greene, or he'd have to make concessions with Democrats, either way, no matter who gets the seat, the next Speakership won't last long...
- That’s the thing, there is no one in the Republican Party who wants to actually be speaker aside from McCarthy. Gaetz and his MAGA caucus just want McCarthy out. They have no plan beyond that point, and are perfectly happy to keep the House paralyzed.
- They say the current whip, but no one would have the votes. This is basically a coalition government.
- Maybe trump would take it if it would throw gum in the works of all his lawsuits. The speaker doesn't actually have to be a representative.
Absolutely wild that they wouldn't oust Gaetz for being a criminal who has broken all of their ethics rules as well but might actually oust him over this. Also I thought McCarthy was going to step down if even one person wanted him to - why would there be a vote held? The US desperately deserves more votes of no confidence type events.
- Lie with dogs, get flees.
  And as the case is with the freedom caucus: Get in bed with them, get crabs (and gonorrhea, genital warts, syphilis, and whatever else Matt Gaetz has).
It's way past time. Democrats need to behave like there's a civil war on and the GOP started it.
The way the text here it phrased, it sounds like McCarthy wronged the Democrats by giving them nothing, and they're getting him back by letting him go. But the article makes it clear that they asked for nothing and he expects nothing from them, and respects that.
No need to imply animosity and back biting between McCarthy and the Dems that isn't there.
It's more like "you do your thing, we'll do our thing, and that's OK, no matter how it turns out."
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that he would not give Democrats anything in exchange for their votes to help save his Speakership, after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) moved to force a vote on ousting him.
“They haven’t asked for anything. I’m not going to provide anything,” McCarthy said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“Hakeem runs his conference,” McCarthy said of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). “He’s going to have a conference, and everybody’s going to talk about it, and I’m not going to put Hakeem in any position, and I respect whatever decision anybody makes.”
- It's not that McCarthy hasn't asked anything of Dems, it's that he has worked hard not to include them, like all Republican speakers since Denny Hastert.
  This is viewed as normal, but it hasn't always been that way and perhaps shouldn't be that way. There's a universe where a Republican speaker facing a revolt from the right can gain Democratic allies by cooperating with them in some fashion or other.
- It's more like Kevin has reneged on important deals like the debt ceiling and putting the decision to start impeachment hearings to a floor vote. If he doesn't keep his promises, why bother making deals with him?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
House Democrats on Tuesday said they do not plan to save Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) when a vote on ousting him from the top spot hits the floor later in the day.
Emerging from a more than two-hour meeting in the Capitol, House Democrats said they will vote to oust McCarthy from the Speakership.
“We are following our leader and we are not saving Kevin McCarthy,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters.
Asked if a decision was made as a caucus not to support McCarthy, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) responded, “yes.”
There will likely be a procedural vote to table the resolution to oust McCarthy or refer it to committee before the chamber weighs in on whether or not to boot the Speaker.
“But in the interest of answering inquiries to my office about whether or not I would support Kevin McCarthy: he’s not the leader I would choose – he doesn’t have the pulse of the people of Maine’s Second District.
The original article contains 392 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 57%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Looking forward to seeing the 25 votes to select the next speaker
There's something about all this that stinks of when fascism in the past has used predictably partisan behavior to seize power.

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