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Now: House Debates Ahead Of Vote To Oust McCarthy. Aired 3-3:30 ET

Aired October 03, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

REP. TOM COLE (R-OK): Finally, last Saturday on this floor, we were on the verge of a government shutdown. A government shutdown that the vast majority of members in this chamber did not want. A substantial majority on my side, an overwhelming majority on the Democrat side, he put his political neck on the line, knowing this day was coming to do the right thing. The right thing for the country, without a doubt. My friends and I agree on that, whether or not we agree on the Speaker. He did the right thing.

He did the right thing, I think, for this institution. He showed it could function in a time of crisis. And finally, I think he did the right thing for our party. He made sure that we could continue to negotiate and achieve some of the very objectives my friend from Virginia laid out, and achieve them in divided government, which calls for some degree of give-and-take. So I'm very proud of this speaker. I'm very proud to stand behind him.

Tomorrow morning, whether I win or lose, I'm going to be pretty proud of the people I fought with, and I'm going to be extraordinarily proud of the person I fought for, the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.

And with that, I reserve the balance of my time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentleman from Oklahoma's time is reserved. Gentleman from Florida.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Mr. Speaker, my friend from Oklahoma says that my colleagues and I who don't support Kevin McCarthy would plunge the House and the country into chaos. Chaos is Speaker McCarthy. Chaos is somebody who we cannot trust with their word. The one thing that the White House, House Democrats and many of us on the conservative side of the Republican caucus would argue is that the thing we have in common, Kevin McCarthy said something to all of us at one point or another that he didn't really mean and never intended to live up to.

I don't think voting against Kevin McCarthy is chaos. I think $33 trillion in debt is chaos. I think that facing a $2.2 trillion annual deficit is chaos. I think that not passing single subject spending bills is chaos. I think the fact that we have been governed in this country since the mid-90s by continuing resolution and omnibus is chaos, and the way to liberate ourselves from that is a series of reforms to this body that I would hope would outlast Speaker McCarthy's time here, would outlast my time here, and would outlast either of our majorities.

Reforms that I have heard some of the most conservative members of this body fight for and some of the reforms that we've been battling for, that I've even heard those in the Democrat caucus say would be worthy and helpful to the House, like open amendments, like understanding what the budget is. We have been out of compliance with budget laws for most of my life, most of many of your lives.

And by the way, if we did those things, if we had single subject bills, if we had an understanding on the top line, if we had open amendments, if we had trust and honesty and understanding, there would be times when my conservative colleagues and I would lose, might be a few times when we'd win, there'd be times that we would form partnerships that might otherwise not be really predictable in the American body politic, but the American people would see us legislating.

These last few days, we've suspended the momentum that we had established the week earlier, where we were bringing bills to the floor, voting on them, staying late at night, working hard. That's what the American people expect. It's something Speaker McCarthy hasn't delivered, and that's why I've moved to vacate the chair. I reserve.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentleman's time is reserved. Gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Cole.

COLE: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I yield two minutes to my very good friend, Mr. Emmer, from Minnesota.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Emmer, is recognized for two minutes.

REP. TOM EMMER (R-MN): Thank you. Kevin McCarthy has earned this. Under Speaker McCarthy's leadership, our House Republican majority has actually defied all odds and overperformed expectations again and again and again. It all started with the Speaker's race, when our Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, showed the American people how he would never give up. It carried over into the Speaker's spearheading a rules package to create the most transparent, member-driven legislative process that I've ever seen since I've been here.

And since then, Speaker McCarthy's Republican majority has been successful in bringing common sense back to our nation's capital by passing legislation to affirm a parent's right to be involved in their child's education, bolster American energy production, fully fund veterans care and benefits, fight back against the regulatory state, and continue delivering on our promise to rein in Democrats' reckless spending by passing fiscally responsible appropriations bills.

[15:05:10]

We've also achieved historic conservative wins, like passing the strongest border security legislation in history, passing the first Republican-only NDAA in history and passing the first Republican-only state and foreign operations appropriations bill. So many Americans are better off because of Kevin McCarthy's leadership. American families, job creators, entrepreneurs, service members, law enforcement officer, and the list goes on and on. These are just a few of our House Republican majority successes.

But make no mistake, we need Kevin McCarthy to remain speaker if we're going to stay focused on our mission of delivering common sense wins for the American people. We've shown Americans what success looks like when we come together as a team. Now it's time for us to stand together stronger than ever so we can get back to the work our majority was elected to do.

I'm proud to support the Speaker as we continue championing conservative priorities that will put our country on a better path. Thank you, Speaker McCarthy. I yield back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentleman from Florida.

GAETZ: The opening line of my colleague's speech was that Speaker McCarthy always overperforms expectations, but after tweeting, bring it, and after engaging in profane-laced tirades at House Conference, he just lost a motion to table. So I wouldn't necessarily consider that overperforming expectations.

And time and again I've heard my colleagues say that, well, he deserves it because he went through a tough speaker contest. Let me let everyone know he prevailed in that speaker contest because he made an agreement to fulfill certain commitments to make this an open and honest process and he has failed to meet those commitments and that's why we are here. I reserve.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentleman reserves his time. Gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Cole.

COLE: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I yield three minutes to my very good friend, Mr. Jordan of Ohio.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentleman from Ohio is recognized for three minutes.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): I thank the gentleman for yielding. On January 3rd, we said the 118th Congress is about three things. Pass the bills that need passed, do the oversight work that needs to be done, and stop the inevitable omnibus that comes from the United States Senate right before the holidays. Kevin McCarthy has been rock-solid on all three.

We have passed the bills we told the American people we would pass, 87,000 IRS agents, that bill passed. Parents' Bill of Rights, that bill passed. Energy legislation passed. Border security, immigration enforcement legislation, the strongest bill ever to pass the Congress passed earlier this year.

We have done what we told them we were going to do. We can't help that the Senate won't take up those good common-sense bills. They'll have to answer to the American people come Election Day. Oversight, we have done the oversight that we're supposed to do. Because of our oversight, we know that parents were targeted by the Department of Justice. Because of our oversight, we know that 51 former intel officials misled the country weeks before the most important election we have. And because of our oversight, the Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security is gone. Because of our oversight, the memo attacking pro-life Catholics has been rescinded. Because of our oversight, unannounced visits to Americans' homes by the Internal Revenue Service has stopped. That happened under Speaker McCarthy.

And on the third one, on this side of it, we know there's a big old ugly bill coming at the end of the year, all kinds of spending, all kinds of garbage in it. We're still in that fight. Frankly, to Matt's point, we don't know how that one's going to shake out. But we do know this - we do know this, on Saturday, we didn't take the Senate's bill. They tried to send over and shove it down our throats on Saturday.

We didn't take that bill and it was a tough position he was in. There were five options on the table last week. Option one was to send a long-term CR over there, that would have leveraged the 1 percent cut, something a bunch of us voted for. Both parties couldn't get the votes for that one.

Second option was to focus on the one issue the country now is completely focused on, the border issue. We couldn't get the votes for that one either. But when the Senate tried to send us that bill, he said no to it. I think the Speaker has kept his word. I know my colleagues and friends are saying different. I think he has kept his word on those three things that we talked about on January 3rd, frankly, that entire week. He has kept his word. I think we should keep him as Speaker. I yield back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gentleman from Florida is recognized.

GAETZ: Yeah, the problem with my friend from Ohio's argument is that many of the bills he referenced as having passed are not law. We are on a fast track to an omnibus bill, and it is difficult to champion oversight when House Republicans haven't even sent a subpoena to Hunter Biden.

[15:10:07]

So it's hard to make the argument that oversight is the reason to continue when it sort of looks like failure theater. I yield such time as you make consume to my colleague from Arizona, Mr. Biggs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gentleman from Arizona is recognized. How much time?

GAETZ: What he consumes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So much as he may consume.

REP. ANDY BIGGS (R-AZ): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a serious time, and my mind immediately goes to the young deputy from Cochise County, who two nights ago, while trying to apprehend a runaway vehicle smuggling humans across the border, suffered major injuries, transported to Pima County, where he's in a Tucson hospital fighting for his life.

I'm talking about a border that remains wide open, where drugs come through. The Tucson sector, the most gotaways, known and unknown, of any sector along the border. Terrorists coming in, people conducting criminal conduct coming in, criminal gang members, human smugglers, sex traffickers, they're coming across our border to the tune of hundreds of thousands every month.

Now, I appreciate my colleagues and their position, but I would suggest something. I don't think you can just skip to last weekend and say, oh my goodness, a CR came out last weekend on Saturday. I think we need to go back to January.

I'll say this, this body came together on the Republican side and we passed a good border security piece of legislation, H.R. 2. That's good. And then last week, we passed the DHS bill and the DOD bills, which had funding for our CBP ICE military leaders, military men and women. But why did we - why were we successful in doing that? What happened to motivate us to get there?

Well, for one thing, we didn't bother to pass the 12 appropriations bills as required under the budget control and impounds law of 1974. We didn't do it. And you know how many times that's not been done? Twenty-five years in a row. And you know how many CRs this body has passed in that same period of time? A hundred and thirty. You know what that gets you? A two trillion plus structural deficit, like we had in fiscal year '23. You know what that leads you to? A thirty- three trillion dollar national debt, which is where we sit today.

It leads you to somewhere north of $700 billion in interest payments. And you know why that happened? Because this body is entrenched in a suboptimal path and refuses to leave it. Refuses to leave that path. You cannot change if you're unwilling to change. We had every opportunity to change. We were promised change.

We were promised we were going to go ahead. And we were going to get those 12 bills done. And if we got those 12 bills done - do you know why you do 12 bills? Because it allows you to reduce spending, get rid of wasteful duplicative programs. It allows you to set an agenda to restore fiscal sanity. We chose to not do it again. We were promised we'd do it. That's why, at the end, some people said, we'll vote present. We'll go ahead. We're going to put our trust in Mr. McCarthy to become the speaker. That didn't happen.

I suspected that would be the case. That was my struggle. That was my struggle last November and December. I iterated it to this body, our conference anyway. When we got to the debt ceiling, again, that seemed to spring upon everybody like a surprise.

[15:15:00] And when that happened, I was in there for some of those negotiations on where that number would be and I was astonished how that $1.5 trillion number was negotiated. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

But I will tell you this. To his credit, the Speaker told us one thing that I believe to be true. He said that that's basically the ante in a poker game. He can sit down at the table and I told my colleagues who supported that, that $1.5 trillion in eight months that you're willing to raise the debt ceiling, that's the opening marker and indeed it was. And now projections are many trillion dollars above that.

Yes, I think it's time to make a change. I'm not the only one. And that's somber. Thus it is somber. But what have we failed to accomplish? Why didn't we get this stuff done? When we're campaigning, we're talking about an extension of the debt ceiling to January of 2025. We're talking about additional Ukraine funding. Is that good - maybe that's good in your districts. Maybe it's not. But that money is not offset. We're not paying for it. We haven't designated how we're going to pay for that. The same with the disaster package.

The IRS remains 80 percent increased. And I would tell you, I could get - I will go - I could go down the list, but I will just tell you why this happens. When you don't do your 12 budget bills and you rely ultimately on a CR and I'll get to the calendar in a second, what happens is you cannot leverage this administration to actually enforce the border laws that you need to have enforced. This is a lawless Biden regime. They will not enforce border laws. And we can pass them till we're blue in the face. But until you leverage the budget and the spending, you will not see enforcement by this administration.

So now take a look at the calendar that we were just provided last week, we're supposed to finish by November 3rd, our 12 bills. By November 17th, that's when we're supposed to see that the conference committees have come together, both sides and we resolve this. I don't believe that that's going to happen.

It wasn't going to happen before. You were betting on the come again. At some point, I'd urge you to stop betting on the come and bet on the reality, that's why I can't support the Speaker any longer and I'll be voting for the motion to vacate, I yield back.

GAETZ: Reserve.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gentleman yields back his time. Gentleman from Florida ...

GAETZ: Reserve. Members are advised to direct your comments to the chair, please. Gentleman from Oklahoma.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... reserves. Members are advised to direct comments to chair, please. Gentleman from Oklahoma?

COLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I yield two minutes to my very good friend from Arkansas, Mr. Westerman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Westerman is recognized for two minutes.

REP. BRUCE WESTERMAN (R-AL): Selah, S-E-L-A-H. Selah, this unique word, scattered throughout the Psalms, signals to the reader to pause, reflect, consider, and maybe take a deep breath before moving on. Psalmists use selah to emphasize the significance of a statement.

For example, King David wrote, Blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burden, the God who is our salvation, selah. That is a profound statement with huge implications. It deserves more than a cursory consideration.

Within the next hour, this House will vote yay or nay to vacate the Speaker's chair, a profound action with huge implications. This was last tried in 1910. Joseph Cannon won the vote. One hundred thirteen years later, my office is in the Cannon office building, and Uncle Joe Cannon's statue sits just outside this chamber. No living human has taken the vote we're about to take. It deserves that we pause, we reflect, that we consider deeply the ramification of our actions.

To my fellow Republicans who would consider voting yes to removing our Republican Speaker, please pause and ask yourself two questions, will your yes vote make America stronger? Will your yes vote strengthen conservative policies?

If you believe yes is the right vote, please stand before this body and the American people and articulate your plan, not your grievances or your wishes, your plan.

[15:20:03]

Convince the mass majority of the Republican conference that strongly disagrees with you to follow you. If you cannot do that, which you have failed to do so far, then voting yes is at the least a disruptive overreaction. In reality, it's selfish, bad for conservative policies, and bad for America.

That's why I strongly support Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and why without hesitation or reservation, I will vote no on this disastrous resolution. I yield back.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: All right, as the two sides go back and forth explaining why Speaker McCarthy should be ousted or why he should not, let us take one moment here to gather our thoughts about the arguments being made.

First of all, we should note, Dana Bash, that of the 11 Republicans who joined with all of the Democrats to say that there should in fact be a vote on whether or not to oust Speaker McCarthy, not all of the 11 are going to vote to oust Speaker McCarthy. We're told that Congresswoman Spartz of Indiana will not vote to oust him. Congressman Crenshaw of Texas, a Republican of Texas, said that some of the Republican defection surprised him, but he surmised that some might be just trying to leverage their votes for concessions from McCarthy before the final vote.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I got a text from somebody who is familiar with the way that the anti-McCarthy, I wouldn't even call it a wing, what is it, like a feather?

TAPPER: A clump.

BASH: A clump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A faction.

BASH: A faction - and they say at this point they think it might be around eight, but regardless, it will be enough.

TAPPER: It's enough ...

BASH: It will be enough, yeah.

TAPPER: ... if you combine them with the 208 or so Democrats.

BASH: And this is going to maybe be Captain Obvious, but watching this debate, I think it's important to point out that usually when we watch a debate on the House floor, it's the Democrats and then it's the Republicans, and it's the Democrats and the Republicans. The Democrats are absent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mm-hm.

BASH: This is a Republican on Republican debate and fight over who their leader should be, and Democrats are just sitting back and listening to it.

TAPPER: Although it is interesting to see - and David Chalian, you remarked on this, some of the most self-styled rebellious members of Congress, we see Tom Massie there - Congressman Tom Massie of Kentucky. We saw Jim Jordan of Ohio, really embracing the establishment right now, even if they voted against, as Jordan did, the continuing resolution that Speaker McCarthy put forward on Friday.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I think it shows you how small the Gaetz faction actually is. Small, but sufficient, obviously, given the narrow majority that Kevin McCarthy is working with here. But when you see, Massie and Jordan are perfect examples, but when you see folks who had nothing to do sort of with the establishment inside the Republican conference be with the establishment, you know you've isolated to the very few, just a handful, that are causing this moment.

And that the problem for Kevin McCarthy is the math there, that the small handful is enough.

TAPPER: Yes, all you need is five House Republicans to join with all of the Democrats, Kasie.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes. No, that's right. And I think that this also really underscores the personal nature of what's going on here. That, yes, we've talked about all of the political themes. In some ways, those political realities have enabled somebody like Matt Gaetz. I mean, I remember when Speaker Ryan, Paul Ryan first came in, I asked him a question in an interview we did about being attacked by Breitbart. And he says, there are three things that are true in my life, death, taxes and attacks from Breitbart. And that was like the small version of what we are seeing now.

There's a photo, I know we have it somewhere, but I mean obviously we're watching the floor that are - one of our former colleagues, Daniella Diaz, took of the scrum of cameras around Matt Gaetz, right, yesterday on the House steps. I mean, just dozens of people, cameras. That's his goal and the political system that's around him and the media ecosystem, particularly on the conservative side, has allowed him to grab those cameras, become famous, become a star and take out what is a very personal grievance against Speaker McCarthy and have our entire government pay the price for it.

TAPPER: Although we should note that the reason that one member of Congress can call forward a motion to vacate is because Kevin McCarthy agreed to that ...

HUNT: Yes.

TAPPER: ... when he was trying to become Speaker of the House.

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I mean, to the point, yes, Matt Gaetz wants to be surrounded by cameras. One of the congressmen were saying, what's the plan though? Okay, let's say you get Kevin McCarthy out and he can't keep his speakership, who then is going to be your speaker?

[15:25:01]

It's not like he's proposing an alternate candidate. He's just trying to cause chaos.

And then, for the Republicans who voted to allow the speaker vote to actually happen, now they get to negotiate with Kevin McCarthy and broker some other deals. But is that word even worth anything at that point? Like, would you even believe anything that Kevin McCarthy offered you right now in order to have not more than five people vote to get him out of the speakership? It just - it doesn't make sense.

TAPPER: And Doug, I mean, one of the things that's a shame in all this is that Matt Gaetz is right about some of the things he's saying.

DOUG HEYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

TAPPER: We do have a $33 trillion debt.

HEYE: Yes.

TAPPER: We do spend more than we take in.

HEYE: Mm-hm.

TAPPER: We do, too often, the Congress does not make the tough decisions about how to govern ...

HEYE: Yes.

TAPPER: ... how to budget, but by the same token, Matt Gaetz isn't doing anything to further the solving of those problems.

DOUG: No. And this argument that we've just heard over the past 30 minutes on the House floor is the larger argument that the Republican Party has been having ever since it won back Congress in 2010. So you have a lot of firebrands, and Matt Gaetz being a good example, but what is he - what word does he use over and over again? Fight. I'm a fighter. I'm going to fight harder than somebody else. I'm the ultimate fighter. Nobody can outfight me.

And those on the other side, also Republicans, saying, okay, but what's your plan? Do you have a plan to land a punch, knock down your opponent, win the fight. Essentially, the incentive structure, which are the cameras that Casey was talking about, rewarded Matt Gaetz for just throwing as many punches like Elmer Fudd in a cartoon where he's spinning his arms in a circle and never actually lands one. That's the reward structure. Republicans then will point out, as Congressman Westerman did, but there's no substance here. That sort of gets lost in the details.

And I'd say one other thing that's interesting about this conversation. If you notice on the House floor, when you see Matt Gaetz speaking, he's speaking from the Democratic side of the House. All the Republican positions where the lecterns are taken, so they're sending a message. Matt, you're with the Democrats here.

TAPPER: Yes. Although the Democrats are not speaking.

HEYE: No.

TAPPER: This is - the Democrats are just like this is between you all. Like we have nothing to do with this, have fun, go at it. We're not supporting McCarthy. We're not supporting Gaetz. You just do your thing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, potentially.

CHALIAN: And they're not wrong about that, right?

TAPPER: Right.

CHALIAN: I mean, this really is a making of a circumstance inside the House Republican conference. It's hard to argue with the Democrats sort of saying you guys work this out. It seems to me if they - I spoke to one Democrat today, there was concern if they got too involved, it would look like they were getting into bed with Matt Gaetz, like that they were buddy-buddy and they wanted none of that kind of imagery where they were advancing Matt Gaetz's cause.

HUNT: Yes. Can I also just say here, like, there's no evidence that anyone else is going to be able to do a better job than Kevin McCarthy of governing this House of Representatives. I mean, yes, like there may be someone - he did a good job of keeping challengers at bay during the initial fight to be fight to be speaker. They talk about Steve Scalise and Tom Emmer.

But I mean, this is the third Republican speaker in a row. Boehner left, Ryan left, it looks like Kevin McCarthy is going to get kicked out. I don't know what makes anybody think that finding a Tom Emmer or a Steve Scalise is going to suddenly cure all of the problems that they have with governing the country. I mean, they're going to persist. This majority is still going to be narrow. They still have to deal with a Democratic Senate and a Democrat in the White House.

I just sort of fail to see how we get anywhere and I do think that if we do face or find ourselves facing a situation where there's a vacant speaker's chair for quite some time, I do think Democrats are going to have to kind of think to themselves and the pressure may be on them, but it may also be an opportunity as well for them to be able to say, oh, hey, like, we have a chance to grab some power here and change how the House is working. That would be really unprecedented. But I still don't see how even after this, they throw Kevin McCarthy out. Like, then what?

TAPPER: Right. I mean, the nihilism of this group, this of five or six ...

HUNT: Yes.

TAPPER: ... is evident. They don't want to acknowledge or behave as if the Senate exists, the Democratic Party exists, the President of the United States won fair and square, we have yet to really acknowledge the fact that with the exception of Congresswoman Nancy Mace, everybody who just voted in the Republican caucus to get rid of Kevin McCarthy believes lies about the 2020 Election. That is part of this.

HUNT: Yes.

TAPPER: It is part and parcel when we're looking at the larger nihilistic worldview of the issues the Republican Party is having here is when you let crazy take hold of part of your party, it doesn't go away.

HUNT: Right.

[15:30:02]

TAPPER: And what we saw happen on January 6th in terms of two-thirds of the House Republican caucus ...

HUNT: Conference. Republican conference.

TAPPER: Conference, sorry. 2/3 of the House