Facing threats to his speakership, McCarthy takes a 'YOLO' approach
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has traveled to Israel and the Vatican, hosted Taiwan's president and offered selfies to tourists as conservatives threaten to oust him from his dream job.
June 11, 2023, 12:00 PM CEST
By Scott Wong
WASHINGTON — If there was a theme for Kevin McCarthy’s jampacked first five months as speaker, it would be this: You only live once.
In April, he followed in the footsteps of his political idol, fellow California Republican Ronald Reagan, delivering a major address on Wall Street. Then he hosted Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen at Reagan’s presidential library, infuriating Beijing. Last month, McCarthy met King Abdullah II in Jordan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Since seizing the coveted speaker’s gavel after 15 grueling rounds of voting, McCarthy has embraced the role of happy warrior, frequently stopping to ask tourists if they want to snap a selfie or photo with him and sparring with reporters in the Capitol's marble halls on a daily basis.
Facing fresh threats of being ousted from the right, McCarthy has filled up his calendar and capitalized on every moment as speaker as the Washington establishment openly speculates how long he can hang on.
“I don’t think he knows when it’s going to happen,” said one House Republican lawmaker who supported McCarthy for speaker, “but he’s planning just like it’s going to happen tomorrow.”
Speakerships are “ephemeral — just like all of our time here in Congress,” quipped Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., a former leader of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus and one of the “Never Kevins” who tried to block McCarthy from the top job.
“Republican speakers typically don’t have a long shelf life given the dynamics of the conferences these days,” said former Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., who witnessed the Freedom Caucus push out Speaker John Boehner in 2015, deny McCarthy the gavel, then torment Speaker Paul Ryan before he, too, left Congress in 2019.
“Maybe he can break the trend,” Dent said of McCarthy. “He’s doing what every other speaker would be doing but … maybe a little bit more on an accelerated timeline.”
In between the big speeches and summits, that he's imbued with symbolism, McCarthy has been putting his own personal mark on the speakership. Eschewing the sterile House Studio A that had been used by his predecessors — Speakers Boehner, Ryan and Nancy Pelosi — McCarthy has been holding his news conferences in hallways and rooms previously not used for such events, including the tiny foyer outside his office and the echoey Statuary Hall.
During the debt standoff, he appeared to relish going toe-to-toe with the press, holding lengthy impromptu gaggles until reporters ran out of questions. And instead of delegating the task to rank-and-file members, McCarthy makes the short walk to the chamber to open the House floor almost every day.
In his opening months, he also struck a major deal with President Joe Biden to lift the debt ceiling and cap spending — a crowning legislative achievement. But that same bipartisan agreement has only fueled more speculation that McCarthy’s days in the speaker's office could be numbered.
After the deal, a handful of McCarthy’s conservative foes have openly threatened a "motion to vacate" that would force a vote of no confidence on the House floor. And that same band of rebels paralyzed the House this week when it joined Democrats in blocking a suite of GOP messaging bills, undermining Republicans’ fragile majority and embarrassing McCarthy’s leadership team.
“It’s surprising to me how many people have called suggesting we need a different speaker,” said Biggs, one of the 11 conservatives who voted to block the GOP messaging bills.
New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said some Republicans are “so frustrated” by the GOP infighting they have privately suggested that “maybe there could be a coalition government” with moderate Democrats and Republicans, though he declined to name those members.
Meanwhile, McCarthy allies have aggressively pushed back on the idea that the speaker is a short-timer who’s trying to quickly check off all of the boxes of the job before a hasty exit. They argue that McCarthy, who served in leadership for 14 years before he fulfilled his lifelong ambition of becoming speaker, has had plenty of time to think and plot out what he’d like his speakership to look like.
