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      Republicans to introduce resolution to ‘rid the House of George Santos’

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      New York Republicans in the US House on Wednesday moved to expel one of their own: George Santos, the serial fabulist and accused fraudster who faces new charges under a superseding federal indictment.“Today, I’ll be introducing an expulsion resolution to rid the People’s House of fraudster George Santos,” the GOP congressman Anthony D’Esposito said in a post on social media.In response, Santos said he was going nowhere, asking his “fellow Americans” to “stay strong … and trust that the process will unfold as it should”.D’Esposito said the resolution was co-sponsored by Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro, Nick Langworthy and Brandon Williams – all House Republicans from New York.Santos won his own New York seat last year, in midterm elections that saw the House swing to Republican control in no small part due to success in the Empire state.Santos’s résumé swiftly unraveled, as news outlets reported allegations of wrongdoing beyond the mere “embellishment” to which he admitted, even bringing into question his actual name.Santos remained defiant and party leaders, beholden to a narrow majority, chose not to act against him.That stance endured even after Santos pleaded not guilty in New York in May to multiple charges of fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements.Last week, Santos’s former campaign treasurer pleaded guilty to fraud. Then, on Tuesday, a superseding indictment introduced 10 new charges against Santos relating to allegedly stealing donors’ identities and charging thousands of dollars to their credit cards.Santos now faces 23 criminal charges. As reported by CNN, on Wednesday he told reporters: “I’m pretty much denying every last bit of charges.” He also said he would not resign and still intended to run for re-election.The same morning, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a watchdog group, said Santos was the only member of the current Congress who has not yet filed a mandatory personal financial disclosure. Consequences can include fines and civil or criminal penalties.Expulsions, however, are rare: only five House members have ever been expelled: three for fighting for the Confederacy in the civil war and two after being convicted of crimes including fraud and bribery.Kevin McCarthy, the speaker ejected by hard-liners last week, had resisted attempts to add Santos to that list, instead referring him to the House ethics committee.On Wednesday, as Republicans voted to make Steve Scalise of Louisiana their nominee to succeed McCarthy, Lawler told CNN: “It takes two-thirds [of the House] to expel a member from Congress. There were not two-thirds votes back in May when the initial expulsion resolution was brought, which is why it was referred to the ethics committee.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Myself and my New York colleagues wanted to allow the time for the investigation to be handled. But with the guilty plea of [Santos’s] treasurer, admitting to the very scheme he has been now twice indicted on, with 23 felony counts, he cannot serve.“I’ve said repeatedly since December he needed to resign. I believe that in the absence of his resignation, the time to act is now … it’s clear with his treasurer’s guilty plea what occurred, and as far as I’m concerned he should not be a member of Congress.”Santos issued a statement.Republicans, he said, “must remain steadfast in our commitment to upholding due process and respecting the constitution”, which he called “the cornerstone of our democracy and the guiding light that ensures justice and fairness for all”.Santos added: “An expulsion of myself as a member of Congress before being found guilty from a criminal investigation will set a dangerous precedent. This will do nothing other than erase the voices of the electorate. Let us not succumb to the distractions and let the political games take precedence over the people’s welfare. We must stay focused on the task at hand, working diligently to address the pressing issues that affect the lives of our constituents.D’Esposito said in a statement that Santos’s “many deceptions coupled with the ever-expanding legal case against him further strengthen my long-held belief that he is unfit to serve in Congress”. More

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      Republicans nominate Steve Scalise to replace McCarthy as House speaker

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      House Republicans nominated Steve Scalise to be the next speaker on Wednesday, a week after the unprecedented ouster of Kevin McCarthy. But a handful of objections to Scalise’s nomination left House Republicans unable to move to a final floor vote, making it unclear when a new speaker might be elected.By a vote of 113 to 99, Scalise, currently the second-ranking House Republican, defeated a challenge from congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the judiciary committee and a far-right firebrand.Still, the result fell well below the 217-vote threshold needed to be elected speaker on the House floor, where Republicans chaos and division triggered 15 rounds of balloting before the caucus united behind McCarthy earlier this year. The timing of a potential floor vote to elect Scalise remained uncertain on Wednesday afternoon, when the House held a brief pro forma session and then went into recess.If all 433 current House members participate in the vote, Scalise can only afford four defections within the Republican conference and still win the speakership. As of Wednesday, at least 10 House Republicans said they were not prepared to back Scalise, with several more still undecided.“Obviously we still have work to do,” Scalise said after winning the nomination. “We need to make sure we’re sending a message to people all throughout the world that the House is open and doing the people’s business.”Emerging from their conference meeting on Wednesday afternoon, a couple of Jordan’s allies, including Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado, indicated they would still support Jordan in the floor vote.“We had a chance to unify the party behind closed doors, but the Swamp and K Street lobbyists prevented that,” Boebert said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The American people deserve a real change in leadership, not a continuation of the status quo.”Even as his allies rallied around him, Jordan appeared ready to support Scalise on the floor. According to a source with direct knowledge of the situation, Jordan plans to vote for Scalise and has encouraged his colleagues to do the same. Jordan also offered to deliver the nominating speech on Scalise’s behalf, the source said.That encouragement has not yet swayed some of Scalise’s detractors. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hard-right Republican from Georgia, said she would not support Scalise because of concerns over his health, as the congressman is undergoing chemotherapy treatment for blood cancer.“I will be voting for Jim Jordan on the House floor,” Greene said on X. “I like Steve Scalise, and I like him so much that I want to see him defeat cancer more than sacrifice his health in the most difficult position in Congress.”Some members on Tuesday had suggested they would prefer an alternative – or McCarthy. But McCarthy, who recently suggested he would be open to reclaiming the gavel, said on Tuesday that he asked his caucus not to re-nominate him for the job.Leaving a meeting with Scalise on Wednesday, McCarthy reiterated his plans to support his former deputy. Of the Republican holdouts, McCarthy said: “Steve’s going to have to talk to them all, see what the concerns are. But I’m supporting Steve.”Republicans’ tenuous grasp on power was on full display last week, when McCarthy became the first House speaker in US history to be ejected from office. Eight Republicans, led by the hard-right congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida, joined with House Democrats to remove McCarthy as speaker.But Gaetz said Wednesday that he was “excited” to support Scalise on the floor, telling reporters, “Long live Speaker Scalise!”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUntil a new leader is chosen, the Republican congressman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina will continue serving as the acting speaker while the House remains unable to conduct other business.Republicans hope they can choose a speaker by the end of the week and avoid the spectacle that unfolded in January. A quick election would allow Republicans to turn their full attention to the situation in Israel, following this weekend’s attacks staged by Hamas.On Tuesday, the Republican chair of the House foreign affairs committee, Michael McCaul of Texas, and the panel’s top Democrat, Gregory Meeks of New York, introduced a bipartisan resolution expressing support for Israel. As he entered the conference meeting on Wednesday, Scalise said the resolution would be his top priority if he ascends to the speakership.“The first order of business under Speaker Steve Scalise is going to be bringing a strong resolution expressing support for Israel. We’ve got a very bipartisan bill, the McCaul-Meeks resolution, ready to go right away to express our support for Israel,” Scalise told reporters.Meanwhile, Democrats once again unanimously nominated their leader, congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York, during a closed-door caucus meeting on Wednesday.Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, California congressman Pete Aguilar, the Democratic caucus chair, said Republicans’ “self-inflicted chaos” spoke volumes about their governing priorities.“Israel, policy, friendship, alliance, strength, national security: that is what the Democratic caucus talked about this morning,” Aguilar said. “What the Republican conference is talking about are rule-changes and who’s in charge, so a dramatic difference.” More

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      The Two Candidates for House Speaker Are Even Worse Than Kevin McCarthy

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      The crisis of terror in Israel has made it even more urgent that the House of Representatives move past its schoolyard infighting, elect itself a speaker and demonstrate that the United States still has a functional government, one that can play a significant role in supporting democratic allies around the globe. So far, however, the Republican House majority has shown no indication it is up to the job.Only two candidates, Representatives Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio, are officially running for speaker. Neither seems to have a majority of Republicans locked up yet, and both are trying to appeal to the party’s worst instincts — making it clear they would perpetuate the chaos that was unleashed during the reign of Kevin McCarthy, who was overthrown by a group of far-right rebels on Oct. 3. In several ways, Mr. Scalise and Mr. Jordan would probably be worse.Both express opposition to the Biden administration’s request for additional military aid to Ukraine. Like Mr. McCarthy, both have cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 presidential race, and voted against certifying the election results, a permanent stain on their reputations. But for anyone who cares about basic governmental function, the most worrisome part is that they also seem to be repudiating the two moments when Mr. McCarthy defused a fiscal crisis in recent months — over the debt ceiling and the threatened government shutdown. They want the House to use more “leverage” in its battles against President Biden.“Leverage,” in case you missed the constant reference in the battle over Mr. McCarthy, is a Washington euphemism for blackmail. By holding the country’s credit hostage, or shutting down government functions, a small band of wrecking-ball ideologues can try to get a win on some unrelated matter. The anti-McCarthyites said he failed to use his speakership to rewrite the rules of government in Washington.“Many of us had begged the speaker, pleaded with the speaker repeatedly, to utilize the debt ceiling to leverage spending cuts and reforms,” Bob Good, Republican of Virginia, told the House before the big vote. “Instead, he negotiated an unlimited increase to the debt ceiling.”Of the two ways to achieve political success in a divided government, leverage is the poisoned choice. The more effective path, the one that used to be employed regularly in Washington, is to cut deals and make compromises with your opponents, even if they are occasionally painful and at odds with your principles. That’s how Lincoln operated, that’s how Lyndon Johnson pushed through his Great Society and civil rights bills, and it’s how Obamacare was created.But ever since Newt Gingrich’s era, the idea of compromising with the Democratic Party, of putting bills on the House floor that both sides can support, has been anathema to Republicans. Speakers from that party who do so tend to lose their jobs or quit under pressure, as John Boehner and Mr. McCarthy learned. The preferred method of dealing with Democrats now is to extort them, and though that usually fails, the mere act of trying brings great cheer to extremists who view centrists from both sides as the rotten core of the “uniparty.” (An exception occurred in 2011, when Barack Obama was forced to make massive spending cuts to prevent a default caused by Republicans.)Mr. McCarthy abandoned leverage to keep the government open through mid-November, and earlier to prevent a ruinous default. But both candidates to replace him have made it clear to their restive caucus that they intend to use the leverage he discarded.“If we stay united, we can preserve leverage for the House to secure tangible wins in our impending policy fights,” Mr. Scalise, the current majority leader, said in announcing his candidacy for speaker last week. Mr. Scalise, as a member of the leadership team, voted for the recent deal to prevent a shutdown, but the signal he sent to the rebels was unmistakable.Representative Steve Scalise of LouisianaMark Peterson for The New York TimesAnd Mr. Jordan didn’t even need to send a signal. He was one of a minority of House Republicans who voted against the shutdown deal, against the wishes of his putative ally, Mr. McCarthy, and his credentials as a legislative bomb-thrower are already impeccable. He has helped lead Republican shutdown efforts at least three times: over defunding the Affordable Care Act, over cutting money to Planned Parenthood and (during the Trump administration) over building a border wall. He told Punchbowl News a few days ago that he would insist on refusing to spend any additional money on processing new migrants, though that would violate U.S. asylum law.Donald Trump’s “Complete & Total Endorsement!” of Mr. Jordan — and his debasement of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he presented to Mr. Jordan in 2021 as a reward for feverishly defending him in his impeachments and during the Russia investigation — tell you pretty much all you need to know about what kind of leader Mr. Jordan would be.Mr. Scalise is less incendiary than Mr. Jordan, but is no more likely to end his chamber’s chaos and bring any degree of bipartisanship to the House than was Mr. McCarthy. He blamed “Soros-backed elements of the Democratic Party” for committing acts of violence against Republicans. Long after the 2020 election was over, he continued to suggest the outcome was stolen, relying on a theory about the primacy of state legislatures that was shot down by the Supreme Court. He had to apologize for speaking in 2002 at a white nationalist group headed by David Duke, but also described himself, according to a columnist, as like “David Duke without the baggage,” and opposed a holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Republicans will spend the next few days trying to determine whether they have the votes to elect any speaker, and it’s possible their internal discord could go on for weeks. You might think that the world’s desperate need for a morally persuasive American leadership would pressure them to make a responsible decision, but given the abysmal choice they are facing, that outcome is hard to imagine.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Two US House Republicans make their bid for the speaker’s gavel

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      Prominent Republican party members Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan made their pitches for the powerful role of speaker of the US House of Representatives on Tuesday amid mounting pressure from a war in the Middle East and another looming government shutdown. Lawmakers exiting a closed-door forum said neither Scalise, the House majority leader, nor Jordan, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, will have a clear advantage when Republicans begin to vote for a nominee by secret ballot on Wednesday.“We’ve got two good leaders within our party, with good perspectives on where the party needs to go and an understanding and an emphasis on reuniting the party,” Mike Garcia told reporters. But before voting for a candidate on Wednesday, Republicans will have to decide whether to keep internal disagreements behind closed doors by requiring any nominee to win 217 Republican votes, enough to elect the next speaker on the House floor over Democratic opposition. Current rules require only a simple majority. “The first order of business is figuring out a rules change that works for the conference,” said congresswoman Kat Cammack.Republicans hold a narrow 221-212 majority in the House.The narrowly divided caucus raised some worries that neither candidate would be able to win enough support to be elected speaker in the first round of voting.“We’re going to go get this done tomorrow, and the House is going to get back to work,” Scalise told reporters after the candidate forum, which ran more than two hours.Scalise and Jordan each pledged to back whichever candidate ultimately emerged as the nominee, lawmakers said.Republicans’ narrow majority in House made it possible for a fraction of their members to force Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as speaker last week, to endure 15 grueling floor votes to become speaker in January.“We need to handle this inside the caucus and not go through what we did in January,” said Representative Ralph Norman, who opposed McCarthy at the time. McCarthy on Monday said he would take the job back if asked to by House Republicans, but on Tuesday told reporters, “I asked them please not to nominate me.”It took only eight Republicans to oust McCarthy last week, which could make leading the caucus a challenge for any new speaker. While McCarthy was the first speaker to be ousted in a formal vote, the previous two Republicans to hold the job left under pressure from party hardliners.Republicans may have to tackle other thorny issues, including how to move forward on government funding for the fiscal year that began 1 October and whether to change the rule that allowed just one lawmaker to call a vote to oust McCarthy. Current government funding expires on 17 November. Jordan, a prominent hardline conservative backed by former President Donald Trump, told Tuesday’s forum that he would back a new stopgap measure to fund the government through April to avoid a partial government shutdown, according to Thomas Massie, a Jordan supporter.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOther lawmakers said Scalise also backed a temporary funding measure, but they offered few details.Scalise appeared to have the support of many veteran and establishment Republicans including party leaders, while Jordan drew endorsements from others including Trump-style populists.Representative Patrick McHenry, who is standing in as interim speaker, has been seen as a possible fallback candidate if no one else wins enough votes. But McHenry told reporters on Tuesday that he has not spoken to colleagues about running, adding that there are two candidates. Until a new speaker is chosen, the House cannot take action. That has brought new pressure on Republicans after Israel declared war on Sunday following an attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that has prompted calls for more U.S. military aid. Some Republicans are hoping to have a new speaker in place as early as Thursday. More

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      The View From the Press Gallery on a ‘Surreal’ Day in the House

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      A congressional reporter talks about the vote to oust Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker, and what the ‘frenetic’ days ahead may look like.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Catie Edmondson, a reporter who covers Congress for The New York Times, was in the press gallery inside the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Oct. 3, when lawmakers voted to remove the Republican speaker of the house, Kevin McCarthy. In the 234-year history of the chamber, such an action had never been taken.“It was, until the last minute, hard to believe it was really happening,” Ms. Edmondson said in a recent interview.The House cannot fully function without a speaker. During a brief recess, two Republicans announced that they would run for the post, and on Monday Mr. McCarthy even indicated that he may seek to reclaim his seat.Ahead of a House session on Wednesday, when lawmakers are expected to formally begin the campaign for a new speaker, Ms. Edmondson discussed reporting from the chamber at the moment of Mr. McCarthy’s ouster. This conversation has been edited.When did you realize something extraordinary was happening?I’ll go back to the very beginning. I covered McCarthy’s election to the leadership post in January. There were 15 rounds of voting before he eventually won the gavel. Because that hard-right faction put him through the ringer in order to get him elected in the first place, there was a sense that this moment was inevitable, that McCarthy would face a challenge like this from the hard right.But it was still completely surreal to watch it unfold in real time. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida had been teasing the idea that he was going to introduce a resolution to oust McCarthy the week before. But it wasn’t quite clear to us how many Republicans he had on board.The big question was always going to be, What are Democrats going to do? Republicans have such a thin margin in the House, and our understanding was that if Democrats moved to try to give him passive support by voting present, there was a better chance he would be able to weather any sort of challenge. But it became clear, talking with Democrats late Monday night and early Tuesday morning, that they had no intention of helping McCarthy.How did you and your colleagues cover the vote in the chamber?We had our team in the gallery counting every single vote. I was sitting next to my colleague Carl Hulse, our chief Washington correspondent, who has covered Capitol Hill for decades. He had never seen anything like this, either. I was having frenetic conversations with Carl and my editor, Julie Hirschfeld Davis. We had two sets of stories ready to go: One set if McCarthy survived the challenge, and one if he didn’t.Capitol Hill’s decorum is well known. Lawmakers, acting in the public view, often guard their behavior. Could you see the gravity of this moment reflected in the behavior of House members?Once that gavel came down and the presiding officer declared the speaker’s office to be empty, we saw many Republicans looking really upset. We saw a huge crowd go up to McCarthy to shake his hand, to give him a hug. It was a singular experience to watch. It’s very rare that the House votes in the fashion that it did, where lawmakers stand up, one by one, to cast their votes. I think that added to the sense of tension and drama.What happens as the House resumes its work?We expect a flurry of activity before there is a formal vote on the House floor to elect the speaker, which House rules require. There’s going to be a candidate forum where the candidates running for speaker make their pitch. It’s going to be a pretty frenetic few days. Most people are preparing for an extended race. Maybe they’ll be able to coalesce around someone more quickly than we expect. But I think there are a lot of people who are girding for another drawn-out election.What does a typical workweek look like for a congressional reporter?I’m up on the Hill at least four days of the week. We have our desk space in the press gallery, but a lot of our time is spent roaming around the hallways, trying to buttonhole lawmakers and ask how they are thinking about voting. For pivotal votes, we sit in the press gallery in the House chamber, just over the lawmakers sitting on the House floor.Is there a skill required to do this job that you could not have anticipated?I came to the congressional team to help with our coverage of the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice. I thought it was a pretty crazy, chaotic, fast-moving atmosphere that would slow down at some point. It never really did. The ability to adapt and keep going is one skill that’s tricky to anticipate. The other is facial recognition — being able to identify lawmakers in the House and pull them aside. More

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      George Santos Draws Another Democratic Challenger: Tom Suozzi

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      The NewsThomas R. Suozzi, the Long Island Democrat whose failed bid for governor in 2022 may have helped clear the way for Representative George Santos to get to Congress, announced on Tuesday that he would run to replace Mr. Santos and take back his seat in the House of Representatives.Tom Suozzi, during a 2022 campaign visit to Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, left his House seat for an unsuccessful run for governor that year.Amir Hamja for The New York TimesWhy It Matters: Democrats see a major opportunity to flip the district, and the House.Mr. Santos, a Republican, flipped a suburban district covering parts of Long Island and Queens last year that had largely favored Democrats, after Mr. Suozzi chose to run in the Democratic primary for governor instead of defending his seat in Congress. Mr. Santos’s victory helped his party narrowly take control of the House.Democrats were already champing at the bit to win back the seat and others they lost in New York next year, hoping it could help them flip the House. They are already pouring money into the state, and hope to damage other New York Republicans by linking Mr. Santos’s issues — most notably a 13-count federal indictment — to them.Republicans are eager to hold the line. They are also eyeing pickup opportunities. On Tuesday, Alison Esposito, a Republican who lost her bid for lieutenant governor last year, said she would challenge a Democratic incumbent, Representative Pat Ryan, in the Hudson Valley.Before Mr. Santos even took office, he was dogged by scandal. The New York Times and other news outlets reported that he had lied to voters about much of his life. His campaign was found to have engaged in questionable fund-raising and spending, and his personal finances were murky.Lies, Charges and Questions Remaining in the George Santos ScandalGeorge Santos has told so many stories they can be hard to keep straight. We cataloged them, including major questions about his personal finances and his campaign fund-raising and spending.The Background: Santos’s court case is ongoing.In May, Mr. Santos was charged in federal court with 13 felonies in three alleged financial schemes. Prosecutors have accused him of fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and false statements.Mr. Santos has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and he has insisted he will remain in his race.On Thursday, his former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty in a related case. In court, Ms. Marks said that she and an unnamed co-conspirator agreed to report false campaign donations and a fictional $500,000 loan that Mr. Santos said he made to his campaign.That co-conspirator is understood to be Mr. Santos.Prosecutors have not charged him with falsifying the loan or with other campaign finance violations. But his apparent involvement, which prosecutors documented with text messages and emails, would seem to leave him vulnerable to more charges.Court documents filed last month suggested that Mr. Santos and prosecutors may be discussing a plea deal, though Mr. Santos has denied it. But a guilty plea or further charges would increase the pressure on him to leave or be removed from office.What Happens NextIf Mr. Santos were to leave his seat, there would be a special election to replace him. In that case, local party leaders would pick their nominees.Mr. Suozzi, a centrist Democrat who served six years in Congress, could be a prime choice for his party. Even after redistricting, the district largely resembles the one Mr. Suozzi represented, so he is familiar to voters there and has a track record he could cite against a Republican opponent.If no special election takes place, Mr. Suozzi would have to win what is shaping up to be a crowded Democratic primary next June. Already, seven others have filed statements with the Federal Election Commission saying they were entering the race.Mr. Santos, too, is facing challengers, with at least nine people filing similar documents for the Republican primary. He is expected to face a tough battle. Even before the criminal case, local Republican leaders said they would not back Mr. Santos’s bid.The former House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, also said that he would not support Mr. Santos’s re-election. It is unclear whether Mr. McCarthy’s successor, once one is chosen, would change course.Mr. Santos is next scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 27. More

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      Matt Gaetz says ousting of Kevin McCarthy was worth risk of losing seat

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      The Republican US congressman Matt Gaetz claims it would not matter to him if he lost his seat in Congress for leading the ouster of his fellow party member Kevin McCarthy as US House speaker last week.Asked Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press whether McCarthy’s removal as House speaker would be worth losing his job over, Gaetz responded: “Absolutely. Look, I am here to fight for my constituents.”Gaetz, a Florida representative, on Tuesday followed through on months of threats to boot McCarthy from the speakership after the Republican congressman from California struck a deal with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown at the beginning of October. Gaetz sided with seven other far-right House Republicans and all Democrats in the chamber to strip McCarthy of his role, making him the first speaker in US history to be removed.In response, some House Republicans have openly talked about kicking Gaetz out of their caucus. That manoeuvre would require approval of two-thirds of House Republicans.A more extreme option on the table is to move for Gaetz’s expulsion from Congress altogether, which would also require two-thirds of the House to vote in favor of it.“I don’t see how they can really be part of a conference when they come on the inside, listen to what is going on, and then [go] outside and lob bombs into the middle,” Republican congressman Dave Joyce of Ohio told CNN. Joyce, the Republican Governance Group’s chairperson, added: “It’s a waste of time having conversations with these people.”In his conversation on Sunday with Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, Gaetz said it was nonsense that House Republicans would consider kicking him out of either their caucus or the legislative body.“The voters of Florida’s first congressional district sent me here with about 70% of the vote,” Gaetz said, alluding to his comfortable margin of victory during his re-election run in last year’s midterms. “So I think that anyone trying to kick me out of Congress because they didn’t like me would have a bone to pick with them.“They want to expel me from Congress? That’s crazy.”Welker asked Gaetz whether it was irresponsible for him to successfully plot McCarthy’s ouster as House speaker without a clear replacement. Gaetz argued that Republicans – who hold a thin majority in the House – have “two men who are incredibly respected” ready to succeed McCarthy as speaker.The remark referred to the two Republican congressmen who have announced bids to run for the vacant speakership: Jim Jordan of Ohio and Louisiana’s Steve Scalise, who is the House majority leader.Gaetz declined to endorse one over the other on Monday. He only said he was “heartened” to talk with both “on their specific plans on spending and single-subject appropriations bills” ahead of a House vote to select a new speaker that is tentatively expected to occur in the coming days.“If either of those men get the most support in the conference, I’m eager to vote for them on the floor,” Gaetz said. More

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      Top Republican urges party to end ‘civil war’ and elect House speaker this week

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      Republicans in Washington need to elect a new speaker “this week” and end the party’s “civil war” in the House that is sending a message to the world of dysfunction, especially amid the conflict unfolding in Israel, a senior GOP figure said on Sunday.The Texas Republican congressman Mike McCaul, chairman of the House foreign affairs committee, urged his own party in the House to unify because “we have got to move quickly, we cannot paralyze democracy, especially when we have hotspots all over the world… and I’m just worried about the messaging this sends.”A small group of hard-right House Republicans last week managed to force out speaker and California Republican Kevin McCarthy, against the wishes of moderate colleagues, in an unprecedented move to punish him for allying with Democrats to prevent a government shutdown. McCarthy had only served in the post since January when he scraped through an unparalleled 15 rounds of voting.In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union show on Sunday morning, McCaul said it was important for the House, which cannot pass legislation without a speaker, to reboot “so that we can get things to the floor”, such as a bipartisan resolution condemning the attack by Hamas militants on Israel and action to help with Israel “replenishing” its Iron Dome anti-missile system.“It’s too dangerous a time right now to be playing games with national security,” he said, also expressing hope that the fighting in Israel does not escalate and spread.McCaul said of there were worries about an expansion of the crisis unfolding in southern Israel.“If this lights up into a larger jihadist war against the zionist, if you will, that’s always what keeps everyone up at night,” he said.Meanwhile, McCaul thought the House Republican conference was “ready to unify around one speaker and not have this civil war”. The rightwing congressmen Jim Jordan of Ohio, who has been backed by former president Donald Trump, and Steve Scalise of Louisiana are the current leading contenders to succeed McCarthy and votes are expected on Wednesday.“It was not my idea to oust the speaker, I thought it was dangerous…[considering] all the threats that are out there,” McCaul said in the CNN interview.“What kind of message are we sending to our adversaries when we cannot govern, when we are dysfunctional, when we don’t even have a speaker of the House? I mean how does Chairman Xi of China look at that when he says democracy doesn’t work, how does the Ayatollah [of Iran] look at this, knowing that we cannot function properly?” McCaul said, referring to Chinese president Xi Jinping.He said he thought either Jordan or Scalise “can provide solidarity”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe House minority leader and New York Democratic congressman, Hakeem Jeffries, also told CNN’s State of the Union that “it’s time for the GOP to end the Republican civil war…[because] we need to get things done” on Capitol Hill.Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman, who instigated the ousting of McCarthy last week, said on NBC’s Meet the Press that there would be a new speaker this week and House Republicans would be “back on track” and “invigorated”.He called the crisis in Israel “horrifying” but said the situation in the House would not stop the US coming to Israel’s aid.The Republican presidential candidate for 2024 and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said on ABC’s This Week that even without the events in Israel the ousting of the speaker of the House by a small GOP faction was “wholly irresponsible”. More