US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been ousted from political life after a right-wing rebel from his own party launched a bid against him.
Republican Matt Gaetz filed a resolution on Monday to remove Mr McCarthy after tensions between the pair flared when the Speaker passed a bill with the help of Democrats to fund the government and avoid a federal shutdown.
Mr McCarthy said he would not run again as Speaker after he was ousted on Tuesday, October 3.
It is 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 and, at present, there is no clear successor to oversee the House Republican majority.
Congress now has just over 40 days to agree on a deal to avoid another potential government shutdown.
But what do we know about the background to the issue?
Who is Matt Gaetz?
Matt Gaetz is a 41-year-old hard-right Republican congressman from Florida who is a loyal Donald Trump supporter.
He has been involved in politics in the US for 20 years after following in his father’s footsteps and serves Florida after being elected in 2016.
Gaetz is the son of prominent Florida politician Don Gaetz and was raised in Florida. He originally graduated as a lawyer and briefly worked in private practice before running for state representative.
This is not the first time he has courted controversy during his career in US politics.
In 2018, he was slammed for inviting a Holocaust denier to Trump’s State of the Union address when he was elected as president and, just months after the January 6 attack on the Capitol when Trump lost the election, Gaetz went on an ‘America First’ tour around the US, where he continued to shout about the false allegations for fraud in the 2020 elections.
In 2020, Gaetz was accused on sex charges and of having sexual relationships with minors. After an investigation, the DOJ decided not to charge him, though Gaetz remains under investigation by the US Ethics Committee.
Why did he want to get rid of Kevin McCarthy?
The issues began back in January, when the Republicans took control of the House. McCarthy was struggling to win the backing of a majority of the House to become Speaker and a group from his own Republican Party, led by Gaetz, wanting reassurances from him before they lent their support to his campaign.
One of Gaetz’s main reasons for intervening was the process by which Congress funds the government, which rebels say “enables runaway government spending”.
Gaetz told CNN that McCarthy was “baiting Republicans to vote for a continuing resolution without Ukraine money, saying that we were going to jam the Senate on Ukraine” while at the same time making a “secret deal”. McCarthy has flatly denied negotiating a deal with Democrats on Ukraine funding.
The US Government is funded by an array of separate funding bills, but the group wanted to see one whole budget put through together on an annual basis.
It is said Gaetz and other rebels he was leading accepted these terms but, on October 1, the House passed four individual spending bills but said a continuing resolution would be needed to avoid a shutdown. Gaetz and about a dozen other Republicans saw this as McCarthy reneging on the terms of their deal to support him in the Speaker’s election and refused to go along with a funding extension. Subsequently, Gaetz called a vote for McCarthy’s job.
Gaetz also believed there were secret deals happening, particularly towards the funding of Ukraine in the ongoing war with Russia.
The first thing Gaetz said on the House floor Monday, when he suggested his motion to oust McCarthy would be coming soon, was, “What was the secret side deal on Ukraine?”
Continuing to provide support for Ukraine has divided House Republicans.
Meanwhile, McCarthy has said Gaetz’s vendetta against him is personal — nothing to do with broken promises and funding concerns — and that Gaetz is targeting him over sex allegations which the House Ethics Committee investigation opened in 2021 involving Gaetz.
McCarthy said on CNBC: “He’s blaming me for an ethics complaint against him that happened in the last Congress. I have nothing to do with it.”
CNN reported in July that the House Ethics Committee had revived a probe into allegations against Gaetz that include sexual misconduct and drug use. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and all of the allegations against him. The department had been investigating Gaetz to determine if he violated sex-trafficking laws or obstructed justice.
What happens next when finding a house speaker?
Republican Representative Patrick McHenry, a McCarthy ally, has been appointed acting speaker for a short period while a replacement is found.
Until a House speaker is installed, it is unlikely that further action will be taken on bills to fund the government, and time is running out — lawmakers in the US have only until November 17 to provide money to departments or risk many of them shutting down.
Republican lawmakers said they will need at least a week to choose a new speaker.
