First Republican publicly supports ousting McCarthy as Speaker
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) on Tuesday became the first Republican to publicly support ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over the debt ceiling deal he struck with President Biden as conservative criticism of the agreement ramps up.
At a House Freedom Caucus press conference on Tuesday, Bishop was the sole Republican to raise his hand signifying he would support a motion to oust McCarthy over the bill.
“I think it's got to be done,” Bishop told reporters after the press conference.
But Bishop did not commit to filing a motion to vacate the chair, which would trigger a vote on removing McCarthy as Speaker.
“I’ll decide that in conjunction with others,” Bishop said.
Hardline conservative Republicans had for months brushed off questions about whether they would seek to replace McCarthy as Speaker if he struck a debt limit deal that did not meet their standards.
But members of the House Freedom Caucus and beyond were infuriated the debt limit bill announced over the weekend did not do more to cut spending and complained that other provisions that Republican leadership touted had massive loopholes.
The measure imposes spending caps, rescinds unspent COVID-19 funds, increases some work requirements for public assistance programs and more.
“I'm just fed up with the lies, I'm fed up with the lack of courage, the cowardice,” Bishop said. “And I intend to see to it that there is somebody who’s prepared to say what needs to be done.”
Bishop was one of 20 House Republicans who withheld support for McCarthy for Speaker in January, resulting in a historic 15-ballot Speaker election. Those members secured commitments to pursue policies like cutting government spending — and restoring the threshold for a “motion to vacate the chair” to just one member, down from a standard of five put in place under former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
While Bishop is the first member to explicitly call for ousting McCarthy over the debt limit bill, other members have been signaling they could be willing to do so.
“If I can’t kill it, if we can’t kill it on the floor tomorrow, then we’re going to have to then regroup and figure out the whole leadership arrangement again,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said on conservative radio host Glenn Beck’s show on Tuesday morning.
Other members of the House Freedom Caucus are putting focus on trying to stop the debt deal before talking about removing McCarthy.
“Let me put it this way. I think this bill indicates exactly why I have concerns about him being Speaker,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said.
“It is a failure of leadership for us to surrender all the leverage and all the strength that we had with the majority House and this Limit, Save, Grow bill in the 11th hour,” said Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)
No Speaker has ever been ousted from the position through the rarely-used motion. Former Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) last filed a motion to vacate the chair against former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in 2015. That motion was referred to the House Rules Committee and defeated, but is widely thought to have helped push Boehner to resign from office later that year.
Bishop did not directly answer a question about who he would have liked seen negotiate with the White House other than McCarthy over the debt limit.
“There’s 222 members of the Republican Conference. Nobody in the Republican Conference could have done a worse job,” Bishop said of McCarthy’s negotiation with the White House.
Updated at 2 p.m.