Gaetz tries to push out McCarthy after deal averts shutdown

Follow the latest updates as spending bill is signed by Joe Biden, temporarily preventing shutdown

House votes to fund government for further 45 days

Matt Gaetz will offer a motion to vacate the chair in an attempt to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the far-right Florida Republican told CNN on Sunday morning.

This comes after MAGA Republicans were outraged by Mr McCarthy striking a deal with Democrats on Saturday to avert a government shutdown.

“I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week. I think we need to rip off the band-aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy,” Mr Gaetz told CNN.

Meanwhile, House Republicans seem eager to exact revenge against Mr Gaetz.

News outlets reported on Sunday that Republicans in the lower chamber are looking towards the conclusion of a House Ethics Committee probe into the Republican congressman from Florida in the hopes that the probe’s findings could warrant (or excuse) his expulsion from the chamber.

Donald Trump called for Rep Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) to be put in jail for pulling a fire alarm in the US Capitol complex on Saturday.

The former president bizarrely claimed that Mr Bowman’s behaviour was worse than that of the rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Key Points

• Biden says there’s ‘not much time’ to keep aid flowing to Ukraine and Congress must ‘stop the games’
• ‘It is time to end governing by crisis,’ Biden says
• Trump calls for Bowman to be jailed for pulling Capitol fire alarm
• AOC says she’d consider backing Gaetz push to oust McCarthy as House speaker’s future in question
• Gaetz could be expelled from House over ethics case amid face-off with McCarthy

[1 October 2023 01:00 · AP]

House measure would fund government at current 2023 levels for 45 days

With no deal in place before Sunday, federal workers will face furloughs, more than 2 million active-duty and reserve military troops will work without pay and programs and services that Americans rely on from coast to coast will begin to face shutdown disruptions.

The House measure would fund government at current 2023 levels for 45 days, through Nov. 17, moving closer to the bipartisan approach in the Senate. But the Senate package would have added $6 billion for Ukraine to fight the war against Russia and $6 billion for U.S. disaster relief.

Both chambers came to a standstill as lawmakers assessed their options, some decrying the loss of Ukraine aid.

“The American people deserve better,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, warning in a lengthy floor speech that “extreme” Republicans were risking shutdown.

[1 October 2023 01:45 · AP]

McCarthy forced to rely on Democrats

For the House package to be approved, McCarthy, R-Calif., was forced to rely on Democrats because the speaker’s hard-right flank has said it will oppose any short-term funding measure, denying him the votes needed from his slim majority. It’s a move that risks his job amid calls for his ouster.

After leaving his right-flank behind, McCarthy is almost certain to be facing a motion to try to remove from office, though it is not at all certain there would be enough votes to topple the speaker. Most Republicans voted for the package Saturday while 90 opposed.

“If somebody wants to remove me because I want to be the adult in the room, go ahead and try,” McCarthy said of the threat to oust him. “But I think this country is too important.”

The White House was tracking the developments on Capitol Hill and aides were briefing the president, who was spending the weekend in Washington.

The quick pivot comes after the collapse Friday of McCarthy’s earlier plan to pass a Republican-only bill with steep spending cuts up to 30% to most government agencies that the White House and Democrats rejected as too extreme.

“Our options are slipping away every minute,” said one senior Republican, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida.

[1 October 2023 02:09 · Phil Thomas]

Senate gives its approval to deal

Late on Saturday, with just hours left before a potential government shutdown, the US Senate gave its approval to the deal passed earlier in the House. The question of continued aid to Ukraine – removed from the House bill at the assistance of pro-Trump Republicans – continued to be a controversial issue, with Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer stressing that assistance to the beleagurered country would continue by other means.

Eric Garcia, John Bowden and Andrew Feinberg have the full story:

[1 October 2023 02:27 · Phil Thomas]

Biden blames Republicans for crisis

President Joe Biden welcomed the last-minute deal but said the United States should never have come so close to a government shutdown. In a statement he said Republicans were to blame – and he promised to keep supporting Ukraine in its battle against the Russian invasion. President Biden wrote:

Tonight, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate voted to keep the government open, preventing an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans. This bill ensures that active-duty troops will continue to get paid, travelers will be spared airport delays, millions of women and children will continue to have access to vital nutrition assistance, and so much more. This is good news for the American people.

But I want to be clear: we should never have been in this position in the first place. Just a few months ago, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement to avoid precisely this type of manufactured crisis. For weeks, extreme House Republicans tried to walk away from that deal by demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans. They failed.

While the Speaker and the overwhelming majority of Congress have been steadfast in their support for Ukraine, there is no new funding in this agreement to continue that support. We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.

[1 October 2023 02:30 · AP]

Earlier McCarthy plan collapsed after opposition from faction of 21 hard-right holdouts

An earlier McCarthy plan to keep the government open collapsed Friday due to opposition from a faction of 21 hard-right holdouts despite steep spending cuts of nearly 30% to many agencies and severe border security provisions.

The White House has brushed aside McCarthy’s overtures to meet with Biden after the speaker walked away from the debt deal they brokered earlier this year that set budget levels.

Catering to his hard-right flank, McCarthy had returned to the spending limits the conservatives demanded back in January as part of the deal-making to help him become the House speaker.

After Friday’s vote, McCarthy’s chief Republican critic, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, said the speaker’s bill “went down in flames as I’ve told you all week it would.”

Gaetz has warned he will file a motion calling a vote to oust the speaker.

Some of the Republican holdouts, including Gaetz, are allies of former President Donald Trump, who is Biden’s chief rival in the 2024 race. Trump has been encouraging the Republicans to fight hard for their priorities and even to “shut it down.”

[1 October 2023 03:15 · AP]

‘All of us have a responsibility to lead and to govern'

At an early closed-door meeting at the Capitol, several House Republicans, particularly those facing tough reelections next year, urged their colleagues to find a way to prevent a shutdown.

“All of us have a responsibility to lead and to govern,” said Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York.

But the lone Democrat to vote against the package, Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois, the co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, called it a victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin and “Putin-sympathizers everywhere.” He said, “Protecting Ukraine is in our national interest.”

[1 October 2023 04:00 · John Bowden]

Catastrophic shutdown averted as McCarthy sides with Democrats over far right in his own party

The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass a funding resolution and keep the federal government open on Saturday after Speaker Kevin McCarthy ended his attempts to work with far-right hardliners and instead cut a deal with Democrats.

After several weeks of negotiations and pitched battles at GOP caucus meetings and the press, Mr McCarthy took the most likely option and averted a government shutdown that would have likely cost the US economy millions of dollars and have been politically damaging for his own party. Now, he faces the prospect of governing over a Republican House caucus where his authority is weaker than ever before.

Dozens of Republicans opposed the measure but were unable to clear the 1/3 margin necessary to defeat the resolution under suspended House rules. Conservatives in his caucus were fuming openly to reporters while their Democratic colleagues celebrated during the vote. The final tally was 335-91 in favor of the measure.

Read more

[1 October 2023 05:00 · Gustaf Kilander]

Tennessee Republican says there’s interest in forcing McCarthy out

[1 October 2023 05:39 · Anuj Pant]

Joe Biden signs temporary funding bill

The looming threat of a damaging shutdown was averted late on Saturday night as Congress rushed to push through a bipartisan deal and Joe Biden signed it into law soon after.

The bill is a temporary, 45-day funding measure pushed through by Democrats and Republicans alike. The package increases federal disaster assistance by $16bn, but also drops aid to Ukraine, a priority for the White House that has been opposed by several Republicans.

The bill will fund the government up to 17 November.

“This is good news for the American people,” Mr Biden said, adding that the US “cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted”.

Mr Biden said Kevin McCarthy, who might lose his job as House speaker after siding with Democrats instead of far-right Republicans, “will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment”.

“We’re going to do our job,” Mr McCarthy said before the House vote.

“We’re going to be adults in the room. And we’re going to keep government open.”

[1 October 2023 06:00 · Gustaf Kilander]

McCarthy avoids question if he needs Dem votes to stay as speaker