Nathan Howard Getty Images via Agence France-Presse Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz said he plans to file a motion this week to impeach House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
One of the leaders of the American hard right said on Sunday that he wanted to dismiss the Republican President of the House of Representatives, after the latter managed to push back against the paralysis of the federal administration with the support of the Democrats.
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“I fully intend to file a motion to impeach President [Kevin] McCarthy this week,” Florida congressman Matt Gaetz said on CNN.
“Go for it,” immediately replied Mr. McCarthy on CBS.
“I will survive” this fratricidal initiative, assured the man who, elected at the cost of numerous negotiations with the Trumpists, had said the day before that he was aware that he was risking his seat.
In a final attempt to avoid the paralysis of the American administration, a resolution proposed by Mr. McCarthy was adopted on Saturday evening by Congress just three hours before the “shutdown”, with the support of the Democrats.
With other Trumpist elected officials, Matt Gaetz is campaigning for drastic reductions in state spending. He accused Mr. McCarthy on Sunday of “lying to the House conservatives.”
“Kevin McCarthy's goal was to make several contradictory promises to delay everything […] and ultimately, break down the spending guardrails,” he accused.
“I believe we must move forward, with a new leader who can be trusted,” he said. “The one thing everyone has in common is that no one trusts Kevin McCarthy,” Mr. Gaetz said.
Mr. McCarthy, for his part, accused the Florida elected official of being “more interested in television interviews than in action.”
“He wanted to push us into a shutdown, even threatening his own constituency,” he said. “If he's angry because he tried to force a shutdown on us, and I made sure the administration wasn't paralyzed, then let's have this argument.”
< p>Kevin McCarthy was elected House speaker on the 15th ballot in January, when Trumpists finally agreed to support him in exchange for huge concessions, including a return to allowing individual lawmakers to call a vote to impeach the Speaker of the House.
A concession that is coming back to haunt him today.
If Kevin McCarthy is still Speaker of the House by the end of next week, affirmed Matt Gaetz, this will mean that he will have been supported by the Democrats.
Sunday, the progressive elected representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez affirmed that she would vote to dismiss Mr. McCarthy, judging him “very weak” in her position.
“It’s not up to Democrats to save Republicans, especially from themselves,” she said on CNN.