US Speaker Kevin McCarthy impeached
The 55th speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has been impeached in a shock vote brought by rebels in his own party.
The rebels have seethed in the nine months since Kevin McCarthy narrowly quelled their attempts to block him and managed to claim the most powerful job in Congress.
No other speaker, a position second in line from the presidency in the federal hierarchy, has been ousted in US history.
It was an undignified end for now, at least to an unstable, unauthoritative tenure by a lawmaker who made his mark as a so-called conservative “Young Gun,” only to get battered by his party’s shifting political currents.
Like many in Congress, he had berated Trump after the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot. But the ambitious lawmaker sensed the winds changing and quickly reversed himself, making a public trip down to Florida to make peace with Trump, thereby securing crucial support for his speakership ambitions.
The recent manoeuvre has exposed the disarray and infighting within the Republican Party as they gear up for the upcoming 2024 presidential election, with Donald Trump at the helm.
The first ouster of a speaker in the House’s 234-year history was supported by only a handful of right-wing Republican hardliners. However, the House is almost evenly divided and with Democrats joining the rebel Republicans, rather than riding to McCarthy’s rescue, he had no way to survive.
The 58-year-old Californian former entrepreneur had sparked fury among conservatives at the weekend when he passed a bipartisan stopgap funding measure backed by the White House to avert a government shutdown.
Florida conservative, Matt Gaetz, who forced the removal vote, gambled that he could oust McCarthy with just a few Republicans.
Democrats, too, had no love for McCarthy, pointing to his decision to renege on a deal with Biden on spending limits hammered out earlier this year in high-stakes talks over the federal budget. AFP
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