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House Votes on Motion to Oust Speaker McCarthy Amid GOP Infighting. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 03, 2023 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:39]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: This hour, we continue CNN's special live coverage of an historic vote on Capitol Hill. Any moment, the House of Representatives will hold a key vote on a motion to oust Kevin McCarthy as Speaker, a motion being brought by one of his fellow Republicans. At the beginning of the day, we knew that there were five Republicans who would vote to oust him. And now, we know that there are six. And we are learning that McCarthy's Republican allies are attempting to make a last-minute plea to the 212 House Democrats there, to try to join them to save him. But House Democrats appear to be united in not wanting to rescue McCarthy. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries just sent what is known as a dear colleague letter to his fellow Democrats, saying it's the responsibility of the GOP to end their own House Republican civil war.

Let's go right to Capitol Hill now, where we find CNN's Manu Raju and CNN's Melanie Zanona. Manu, to you first, what are you hearing from Republicans as this vote gets closer and closer?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're coming to grips with the reality here that Kevin McCarthy simply does not have the votes to survive these afternoon measures. The first vote will happen in just a matter of minutes to try to block Matt Gaetz's effort from going forward. The Matt Gaetz's resolution would actually kick McCarthy out from the speaker chair. There is a procedural vote that will try to block that resolution. That's going to fail. That means McCarthy will lose that first vote because of bipartisan support to actually allow it to move ahead. Then the vote, which we expect later today on that historic vote, to actually eject McCarthy from the speakership. That is expected later this afternoon.

And at the same time, McCarthy does not have the votes for that as well. Then it is major uncertainty about what's next, because the House is essentially paralyzed until they can elect a new speaker. If McCarthy puts himself up as a candidate for speaker, he almost certainly would not have the 218 votes needed to be elected speaker. And other candidates could come up as well, and they wouldn't have 218 votes to be elected speaker. So what will happen then? That is the question that everyone has on their minds, and the question for the speaker. How long is he willing to go to fight this out? Because the congressman who is initiating this effort, Congressman Matt Gaetz, has made crystal clear he plans to force this vote over and over and over again until McCarthy is ultimately forced out in what would be a historic first.

Never before in this nation's history has a speaker been kicked out of the speakership through a vote on the House floor. But that's exactly what we can see later today as we head into a period of deep uncertainty and chaos among the House GOP as they grapple with a leadership crisis in their conference. Speaker of the House Joseph Cannon faced a motion to vacate in 1910, but he overwhelmingly survived. It does not appear that Speaker McCarthy is a Speaker Cannon.

Melanie, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat from New York, he says Democrats are not going to rescue McCarthy. Are Democrats totally united in that? All 212 are going to vote the same way?

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yeah. Yeah. Jake, it's pretty clear in talking to Democrats today that there will be no Democratic cavalry coming to rescue Kevin McCarthy. They huddled for nearly two hours today behind closed doors where they did some soul searching and talked about whether Kevin McCarthy is a speaker worth saving. But ultimately they determined he is not. They pointed out that he's launched an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, that he walked away from a bipartisan debt ceiling deal earlier this summer, and that he helped resurrect former President Donald Trump and his political career after January 6th.

And now after that meeting, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, did put out a statement saying it is now the responsibility of GOP members to end the House Republican civil war. Given their unwillingness to break from MAGA extremism in authentic and comprehensive manner, House Democratic leadership will vote yes on the pending Republican motion to vacate the chair. Now, Jake, we are told, me and my colleague Annie Greer, that some of McCarthy's allies were making a last ditch attempt to try to get Democrats to change their mind. They were making calls, arguing to Democrats that they can't punish McCarthy since he is now being punished by Republicans for working with Democrats. But so far that message is not working. We are expecting at this point Democrats to vote in unison. And so the math does not appear to be on Kevin McCarthy's side, Jake.

[14:05:09]

TAPPER: Melanie and Manu, thank you so much. Let's bring our panel back into the conversation. First of all, one of the things that we need to ask ourselves is, if this happens, if McCarthy is removed from the speakership, immediately there is a question about who is next in the line of succession.

It goes president, vice president, then Speaker of the House. David, you have some insights on this because, per the House practice, a guide to the rules, precedents, and procedures of the House, chapter 34, the speaker is required to submit a confidential list of the clerk of people in the order in which each shall act as speaker pro tempore in the case of a vacancy. In other words, when McCarthy became Speaker of the House, he gave the clerk a list of people. If I'm ever not the Speaker of the House, these are the people who will take my place.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, a secret list. Now, we may need to go back to Manu for parliamentary inquiries here as we go forward in this. But my understanding, and in talking to some Hill aides, this was a rule in the House that became implemented in the aftermath of September 11th of the terrorist attacks as part of a continuity in government kind of thing. What is unclear to me, Jake, is if, and it is a secret list that is handed over. I think it has 10 names on it in order, as you just noted, that would take on the role of speaker pro tempore.

TAPPER: Members of the House of Representatives?

CHALIAN: And must be a member of the House of Representatives.

TAPPER: Okay, so Marjorie Taylor Greene--

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: (LAUGHTER) So I don't know if Marjorie Taylor Greene would be on Kevin McCarthy's list or not. But I also don't know if you are on the list if you know you are on the list. --

TAPPER: Right.

CHALIAN: -- Or is it secret to you as well, and it just becomes revealed if, indeed, the speaker's chair is vacated here and then the clerk opens up that list and gets notified?

(CROSSTALK)

KASIE HUNT, CNN ACHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Can I ask you a question?

CHALIAN: You can, but I don't know that I've been able to answer.

HUNT: But is this only, is this in the case where the House has taken an action to remove the speaker? Or is it only in the case that the speaker is involuntarily, I mean, if the speaker is killed in a terrorist attack? --

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: In the rule of --

HUNT: -- Or in a coma or something.

CHALIAN: I think it is whenever the speaker cannot fulfill the role, not just when vacated. It is my reading of it, but -- I am not a parliamentarian -- (LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

HUNT: Somebody call the clerk (ph) of the house. -- CHALIAN: -- But what I will say is there has been debate, and this I don't think we have the answer to, among House rules experts that I've been speaking with and trying to communicate with all morning on this, as to how much power that speaker pro tem would have. Would they be able to fulfill all the responsibilities of speaker? Or as we expect, their only role here is to oversee the speaker's election until somebody is elected speaker. I think it's important to note for people that watched us back in January, go through 15 rounds of this, a key difference. When that election for speaker was taking place, they weren't members of Congress yet. They had not been sworn in. They were members elect.

And so there was literally nothing that they could do from a governing perspective until a speaker was elected and swore all members in to become members of Congress. That's not the case here --

(CROSSTALK)

HUNT: Nancy Pelosi was still the Speaker of the House at that moment?

UNKNOWN: There was no House.

(CROSSTALK)

UNKNOWN: No, there was no House.

CHALIAN: Exactly. There was no House.

TAPPER: So this, by the way, now that the writer's strike is over in Hollywood, this is a great idea --

UNKNOWN: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: -- for like an idiot version of designated survivor.

UNKNOWN: Yes.

TAPPER: But okay, let's go back to the other thing. Dana Bash, in another way, looking at this conundrum, this pickle in which Speaker McCarthy finds himself, you can look at this and say, you know, he is the person who empowered this --

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah.

TAPPER: -- flank, the gates, now six, the gate six. He gave them power after power, --

BASH: Yes.

TAPPER: -- including the one person motion to vacate power. He gave that when he, because of his desire for power, he gave up the ghost.

BASH: People might be wondering why in a body like the House, which is partisan and has become more partisan over the years, why this kind of motion has not happened before. And in recent times, you just gave the answer because the Congress hasn't had this kind of power. Nancy, I mean, you can speak to this because you actually worked in the House leadership. But Nancy Pelosi didn't allow this to happen. She didn't allow for any one member to make a motion to vacate the chair. The reason Kevin McCarthy did this is because he was giving out concessions to Republicans whose votes he needed vote after vote after vote and he didn't get. And he ultimately got those votes at number 15 back in January by making a concession like this. And this, I remember sitting right here talking about this --

TAPPER: Right.

BASH: -- and questioning whether or not this was going to come back to bite him.

[14:10:00]

BASH: and questioning whether or not this was gonna come back to bite him.

TAPPER: Of course it was, it's Chekhov's gun, and so if you introduce a gun in the act 1 it's gonna go off by act 2. (LAUGHTER) The other thing is this past speakers, right, they wield their power in different ways. --

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yep.

TAPPER: Some of them rule by fear. Boehner would punish people. You step out of line, you're gonna get removed from your committees. Nancy Pelosi was also feared in many ways. Some also, like Paul Ryan, I think it's fair to say, he was very respected. He was a wonk. They begged him to be speaker. He didn't really even wanna be speaker. He wanted to be chairman of the budget committee. What is Kevin McCarthy? Where is his power? Is he feared, is he respected, is he?

HEYE: I don't know is the short answer, and I think what we're learning. Well, that's not good. No, it's not, and that's why we're having this day, and ultimately we're learning that a speaker is only as powerful as their majority sort of allows them to be. Nancy Pelosi had the same size majority as Kevin McCarthy. Very different speakership, and when John Boehner was speaker, Mark Meadows, who was a brand new congressman at the time, just threatened in a letter to make a motion to vacate the chair, and it became such a big deal, the house sort of blew up for a day or two, and that's the anecdote in John Boehner's book where Mark Meadows got physically on his knees and cried and begged for forgiveness from John Boehner.

Obviously, Matt Gaetz isn't doing anything like that right now, and I'll say, having worked on the implementation of House rules, we never even talked about it, so you're talking almost a different language than what most people who work on these things even know about.

TAPPER: But we should note that fear of the House Freedom Caucus by the Republican speaker has been going on for at least a decade or so. It's why Speaker Boehner left before the end. He didn't leave at the end of a term. He left before the term was over. UNKNOWN: One random day when none of us were expecting it.

TAPPER: And also, I remember Speaker Boehner, and you probably at this breakfast, at least two of the three of you were at this breakfast, when he was talking about how he was gonna introduce immigration reform, because this needed to be accomplished, and he was making fun of Republicans who didn't want immigration reform, and then ultimately he buckled because he was afraid that they were gonna remove him from the speakership.

HEYE: House Republican retreat, 2014, we're in Williamsburg, and we present our immigration principles. Speaker Boehner, Eric Cantor, Catherine Morris Rogers, and a guy named Kevin McCarthy. That meeting lasted an hour. We never talked about the issue again. Dana would call me and say, when are you doing anything on this? And it'd usually go to voicemail because I didn't have a good answer for it, so I didn't want to pick it up. That happened a lot.

(LAUGHTER)(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Now he tells me this, now he tells me.

HEYE: I wasn't really busy.

(LAUGHTER) (CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: The voicemails are still on his phone.

(LAUGHTER) (CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: He never listened to them, he never listened to them.

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you asked Doug, where does Kevin McCarthy's power lie? I think it lies with a name we haven't really said. It's with Donald Trump. Why are we here? Everything that you just described was pre-Donald Trump. These five or six now, if Donald Trump called them, this might end right now. If you go back to January, you remember the time when Marjorie Taylor Greene got a call, I think it said DT, and everyone was like, oh my goodness, Trump just called her, and within maybe two votes after, it was all settled --.

TAPPER: There comes House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, HOUSE SPEAKER (R): I think this is a big honor to be able to be this. I think we've been very successful at different points. I just would not understand if there's a handful of Republicans who join Democrats who get to determine who's the Speaker of the House is, but it is what it is.

UNKNOWN: One of, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. (INAUDIBLE) -- what is going on here. What do you think is their thinking? --

MCCARTHY: These are the same ones who opposed me before, and so they're turning the floor over to the Democrats.

UNKNOWN: And what, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. You're the first speaker to face this since 1910. I know that Joe Cannon obviously approved this resolution on his own, but the fact that you're facing this, doesn't that say something about the speakership, or is that the narrow majority, or just the fact that you have a bunch of speakers?

MCCARTHY: Well, no one thought about using it before until the Boehner part, and then Boehner didn't go through with me. I continue to work through it.

UNKNOWN: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. But if this goes to a speaker vote eventually, will you continue to stand for speaker vote after vote after vote like you did?

MCCARTHY: We'll see what happens.

(CROSSTALK)

UNKNOWN: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, are you ready? Are you ready to grind it up? Mr. Speaker.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: All right, I think we've heard all we're gonna hear from him at this brief interlude, although no doubt Speaker McCarthy and allies for him will be speaking when they get to the well of the House of Representatives. But let us continue our conversation. You were talking, Ashley, I'm sorry.

ALIISON: No worries. I think this is a Donald Trump issue because you have people who, Donald Trump dispensed all rules, even if they were still written on paper. And so now you have Kevin McCarthy making promises and it did come back to bite him.

[14:15:59]

But again, if Donald Trump wanted to intervene right now and call some House members, I think that this might end in a different way. And also if Kevin McCarthy hadn't gone down to Mar-a-Lago and after January 6th and bowled to Donald Trump again, he might not be in a situation with Democrats. Donald Trump is the backdrop of a lot of this.

And I think Hakeem Jeffries mentions it when he says MAGA. He doesn't say Trump's name, but they're saying, this is your time again to distance yourself from this threat to our democracy and you're not as a party.

HUNT: I mean, it's two sides of the same coin, right? I mean, we treat these things, the presidential campaign and what's happening on the Hill as separate stories, but they're the same story, right? I mean, it is the story of how a, honestly, cultural divide in the country that started. We saw signs of it way back in 2008 when John McCain had to forcefully rebuke members of his party who stood up and had racist things to say about Barack Obama. But then he gave into it when he picked Sarah Palin, who was really the first candidate really in this mold. And you saw it emerge in House race after House race.

These House races are easier to win. They're smaller areas. They're more gerrymandered, so they're more one party or the other. That's why you've seen a concentration of them here, but it's coming into the U.S. Senate as well. I mean, Tommy Tuberville is kind of a sign of this, right? Somebody who's willing to basically hold up our entire United States military to make a point. It's all related and we shouldn't pull it apart.

CHALIAN: It's a generational transformation. Sorry, Jake sorry.

TAPPER: Guys, we're gonna take a break. We'll come back and we'll talk more about this big picture issue. Just if you missed what Kevin McCarthy just said, a big question here from a reporter. Will you continue to stand for speaker vote after vote? The anticipation, of course, the expectation being that the motion to table will fail. The motion to vacate will succeed. And then Speaker McCarthy will continue to stand for speaker and lose vote after vote. And Kevin McCarthy saying, we'll see what happens. And in fact, we will see what happens. All these votes coming minutes from now, and perhaps my predictions will be wrong. Who knows? Our special coverage continues after this short break.

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[14:20:29]

Welcome back to our special coverage any minute. The U.S. House of Representatives will hold a key vote on a motion to oust its leader, Speaker Kevin McCarthy. We now know there are at least six Republicans who will vote against him. McCarthy, of course, is a fellow Republican. Let's go to Lauren Fox on the Hill. Lauren, what are McCarthy's allies saying about these pending votes? We're expecting any moment the first one will be a motion to table that will possibly be followed by a motion to vacate.

LAUREN FOX, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, you can expect, Jake, that his allies are deeply frustrated, irritated and upset at Matt Gaetz, who they feel like is just a minority voice in their conference. McCarthy, they say, has broad and widespread support, but as Stephanie Bice told me, one key ally of the Speaker right now, in her view, Matt Gaetz is playing a narcissistic game of charades. You also have this from Dusty Johnson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: If McCarthy loses the votes today, do you think he's going to fight? Do you think he's going to run for Speaker again?

REP DUSTY JOHNSON (R - S.D.): Kevin McCarthy has never given up on anything in his life. He never lets the clock run out on him, and he knows that his resilience is his superpower. And he's got a lot of members that are telling him right now to stay in the fight, that there is no other person alive that can get to 218 votes. Kevin McCarthy is going to be the Speaker of the House at the end of the month. You know, listen, there may be a few hours between here and there where he's not Speaker, but Kevin McCarthy is the only person that is supported by 90% of the Republican conference.

FOX: Are you going to stick with McCarthy even if this goes on for a month?

JOHNSON: Listen, Kevin McCarthy is the only person who can properly run this absolutely insane House of Representatives right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And just moments ago, Jake, Kevin McCarthy was pressed repeatedly, including by our colleague Manu Raju, as to whether or not he would continue to run for Speaker if he was ousted today. Would he participate in the next Speaker's race? And he said, we'll see. He didn't directly answer the question. Obviously, allies of McCarthy feel like if they give in to Gaetz and if they allow another candidate to run for Speaker and then get the consensus of the conference, that they are only empowering the hardliners. That the lesson then for people like Matt Gaetz and his friends becomes, if you don't like one thing a Speaker does to govern, then you can try and get rid of them. That is not a message that people like Johnson or Bice want to be sending to their colleagues. Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill for us. Thank you so much. Let's bring back our panel into the conversation. Dana Abash, how much do you think that McCarthy in some ways is responsible for this empowered? We just heard Lauren Fox talking about like, you know, you can't empower the far right here, whatever you want to call them, the MAGA caucus, the Gaetz Six, whatever, by letting them do this. They've already been empowered since the very beginning because of the concessions that McCarthy gave them.

BASH: He empowered them in order to get the Speaker's gavel.

TAPPER: Right.

BASH: Full stop.

TAPPER: Right.

BASH: And he knew that. And my sense is that he thought from the moment that happened, that this time in the chair might not be that long, that it might be short lived, that this was kind of inevitable. What maybe he didn't expect was everybody except his closest allies. But those who have been speaking most loudly, both the conservatives and definitely a lot on the Democratic side, going at him as somebody that they can't trust. And I know that sounds maybe quaint in today's politics, but it's not. And again, even those who very much vehemently disagree, leaders historically, even until recent times, can sit eye to eye and say, I'm going to do this, I have to do this for my politics. And the other would say, I have to do this for my politics.

[14:25:29]

And the frustration with Kevin McCarthy is what you said, Casey, earlier, which is that he is so used to being liked and so wants to be liked, and it's how he got where he is, that he maybe has gone too far from the perspective of those who think that that desire has led to him lying. Because he made it, not intentionally maybe, but making promises that he can't keep and that he doesn't keep.

HUNT: And he doesn't keep.

BASH: They feel betrayed by him. Let me get specific here. When you talk to the Republicans, he felt that he had to make a deal so that the United States didn't default on its debt with the Democrats. --

TAPPER: Earlier in the year.

BASH: -- Earlier in the year. And he did it. And that deal led to certain spending levels. And then what happened was he didn't keep some of those promises on the spending levels because his conservative flank said, what are you doing? Why are you making these deals with Democrats?

TAPPER: Right.

BASH: So he broke the promise on all sides.

TAPPER: So he broke promises with the White House and with the Senate.

BASH: Yes.

TAPPER: Right.

BASH: And look, some of it is that maybe these members are ungovernable, but there are some leaders who have shown, certainly on the Democratic side, Nancy Pelosi had the same. You made this point, Doug, had the same majority, and she was able to figure it out.

TAPPER: Let's go back to Manu Raju on Capitol Hill, who has with him a Republican congressman from North Carolina, the Tar Heels state, Greg Murphy. Manu.

RAJU: Yeah. Congressman Murphy, thank you so much for joining us. Obviously, this is this vote is going to happen on the House floor. You are a supporter of Kevin McCarthy's. What is your message to Congressman Matt Gaetz, who is pushing this effort right now? And may actually succeed.

REP. GREG MURPHY (R-NC): Well, I just question the motivation. Why are you doing this? Is it for personal and grand and grandizement? Is it just to get a good airtime for a governor's race in Florida in two years? You know, nothing's changed when you handicap the speaker at the beginning of the year by doing this. I think he's done a very, very good job considering the circumstances. Is it perfect? No, but no one in this situation is going to be perfect. But this is personal. Gaetz has his own personal agenda against people and also just promoting himself. So I think it's a terrible demonstration for members of Congress. First of all, this is not who we represent.

RAJU: But, you know, it's not just him. There may be 5, 6. What do you say? What do you say to those 7, 8, 9, 10?

MURPHY: But you know, I think this is and this goes on both sides of the stream. It's attack leadership regardless of who they are. And you know, Republicans, our greatest asset is our individualism. But it's also our biggest challenge. And learning to actually play by a team with a team and do these kind of things sometimes is a challenge.

RAJU: What is your advice to Speaker McCarthy? If he loses this vote right now, should he continue as a candidate for speaker as long as it takes? Or is it time for new leadership?

MURPHY: I think it's absolutely he should continue. I mean, he's done in my eyes nothing wrong. There's some members that want perfect in both sides, but you can never, ever get in as far as politics perfect.

RAJU: What if this but what if it keeps dragging on and on and on? You're OK with that?

MURPHY: It took 15 votes before. If it takes 16 or 17 now, so be it. We need to move forward as a country. You know, some individuals, Republican and Democrat, just embrace, embrace chaos. You know, when Gates was asked this morning, who's next? He's he didn't have an answer. So in other words, you can embrace chaos. But if you don't have an answer on how best to move forward, then get out of the way.

RAJU: How worried are you about how this makes the Republicans look right now?

MURPHY: Extremely worried. You know, I'm extremely worried. If you look at what the American people think, Republicans are who they think help guide the economy, stop the absolute chaos at the border, which going on with interest rates, it's actually crippling the country. Americans by a vast majority, Republican and Democrat, support the Republican Party to get things done with this. But these type of asinine gestures don't help us at all.

RAJU: Do you think this is an asinine gesture?

MURPHY: Absolutely asinine.

RAJU: Have you had any conversations with Congressman Gates or any of these holdouts to try to flip that?

MURPHY: I'll speak to the other guys, because I think you can speak intelligently, those I haven't spoken with Mr. Gates at all.

RAJU: How much worried are you? I mean, look, we're staring at a possible government shutdown in another 45 days. If this continues to play out, how likely do you think that could be?

MURPHY: I don't think it's going to play out for 45 days. You know, I was just as worried as I was before about the shutdown. A shutdown doesn't achieve anything on either side. It just achieves chaos. And if you get back and look objectively at what the world is looking at, we're not making a great case for democracy in Putin's eyes or in Premier Xi's eyes either. And so we have to learn how to rule.

RAJU: Last question, your prediction. Will Kevin McCarthy be speaker next week?

MURPHY: Yes, I do. I believe so. You know, it's going to take lots of rounds.