Fox News host Jeanine Pirro tore into Democrats for helping to oust California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House.
Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz initiated the vote to remove McCarthy from office by filing a motion to vacate the chair. To vote McCarthy out, 208 Democrats joined Gaetz and seven other Republicans. As part of the deal that propelled him to the speakership in January, the former speaker agreed to allow a single member to bring a motion to resign. The Florida lawmaker further claimed McCarthy had broken several terms of the agreement.
Even though it prevented a government shutdown (at least until mid-November), the short-term spending bill seemed to particularly irritate Gaetz. It had the backing of far more Democrats than Republicans.
Pirro claimed on ‘The Five’ that McCarthy prevented a government shutdown before being removed from office by Democrats. She threw co-host Jessica Tarlov into the mix in the process and tore her to shreds during the testy segment.
Below is a transcript of the exchange:
PIRRO: “The amazing part of this is that the Democrats for weeks, Karine Jean-Pierre, ‘The Republicans are going to shut down the government! Nobody is going to get a paycheck! We won’t be able to pay bills, ordinary Americans! The horrible Republicans!’ Then what happens is, you get Kevin McCarthy who avoids the shutdown, he avoids the shutdown, he does whatever he’s got to do to avoid it, and what do the Democrats do? They vote, all of them in unison, to hang Kevin McCarthy.”
TARLOV: “We saved him.”
PIRRO: “No, no, you didn’t save him!”
TARLOV: “Really?”
PIRRO: “You sunk him!”
TARLOV: “Saturday, we saved him.”
PIRRO: “You sunk him! You sunk Kevin McCarthy! Now stop it right now! The Democrats stick with each other. The Republicans shoot within the tent. And that is the problem. And at a time when we have got crime with no solution, nobody cares, the progressives are the ones who brought in these Soros-funded DAs, the progressive Democrats are the ones who said, ‘We don’t want bail, we want these criminal dirtbags running around town and re-victimizing other people.’ They’re not solving the problem. So what do they do? They’re reveling in the chaos and the dysfunction of the Republican Party and they’re laughing their asses off and high-fiving each other. Excuse me if what was a curse word. But in the end, we have never been better off as Republicans to go against Joe Biden. He’s an incompetent nitwit, okay? 91 percent of people are concerned about inflation, extremely, housing, paying bills, taxes, the border, and crime. And the Republicans decide, ‘Now it’s time, let’s sink McCarthy.’ That’s baloney!”
“The speaker pro tempore is imbued with all the powers of an elected speaker of the House. McCarthy hand-picked McHenry (R-N.C.) for this role when he was elected speaker in January. The pro tempore is kept as a secret, held by the clerk of the House, until a speaker is removed or incapacitated, a process designed after Sept. 11, 2001, to ensure continuity of government,” Politico reported.
The final vote was 216 to 210 to oust McCarthy; eight Republicans voted with all present Democrats to remove him.
“This is the first time that [the] temporary replacement process has ever been carried out, following a speaker being forced out. As an acting speaker, McHenry is not in the line of succession for the presidency. Just like any acting Cabinet secretary, McHenry would be skipped,” the outlet continued.
McHenry, a trusted confidant of McCarthy, played a crucial role in January as a primary mediator between various House Republican groups, helping secure the necessary votes for McCarthy’s election as Speaker.
He also held a central position in McCarthy’s negotiation for a debt limit agreement with President Joe Biden, a move that drew criticism from conservative factions within the GOP conference and contributed to their effort to oust McCarthy from the Speaker’s position, Politico added.
