Gaetz has clashed with McCarthy for months. Read more at straitstimes.com.
WASHINGTON - US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy faced a threat to his leadership on Monday as a right-wing fellow Republican, Representative Matt Gaetz, said he would try to oust him as Speaker this week, a move that could plunge Congress into a crisis days after dodging a federal government shutdown.
It is not clear whether he will succeed. Republicans control the chamber by a narrow 221-212 majority, and it would take as few as five defections to threaten Mr McCarthy’s hold on power, if all Democrats vote against him.expected he would survive the threat to his job. Mr Gaetz was angered by Mr McCarthy’s move to pass a short-term funding bill on Saturday with support from opposition Democrats to keep the government fully operating and avoid a shutdown. Mr Gaetz and a group of other hardline House Republicans insist on deep spending cuts that Democrats argue would break a deal brokered earlier this year by President Joe Biden and Mr McCarthy.
With only four of the dozen annual appropriations bills passed by the House before the start of this new fiscal year, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Republican, has scheduled two more for debate this week.It was unclear, however, whether the bills to keep federal energy programs operating and the lights on in Congress itself will garner enough Republican support amid a possible wall of opposition from Democrats.