McCarthy says he won’t give Democrats anything in exchange for support as Speaker

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that he would not give Democrats anything in exchange for their votes to help save his Speakership, after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) moved to force a vote on ousting him.

“They haven’t asked for anything. I’m not going to provide anything,” McCarthy said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4235572-mccarthy-says-he-wont-give-democrats-anything-in-exchange-for-support-as-speaker/

Democrats say they won’t save McCarthy Speakership

House Democrats on Tuesday said they do not plan to save Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) when a vote on ousting him from the top spot hits the floor later in the day.

Emerging from a more than two-hour meeting in the Capitol, House Democrats said they will vote to oust McCarthy from the Speakership.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4235808-democrats-say-they-wont-save-mccarthy-speakership/

By many measures, the U.S. economy is thriving: Unemployment stands close to the 50-year low set in April, the fraction of people aged 25 to 54 in work is at a two-decade high, gross domestic product is growing rapidly, inflation is falling, and the S & P 500 is a third higher than it was before the pandemic.

While encouraging, economic statistics like these offer an incomplete picture of the state of the country. There is a deep and persistent national malcontent — in one recent NBC News poll, nearly three-quarters of Americans say the country is on the wrong track, while Gallup reports that poor life ratings are at record highs.

What the economic statistics obscure in the averages is that there is not one but two Americas — and a clear line demarcating the division is educational attainment. Americans with four-year college degrees are flourishing economically, while those without are struggling.

Worse still, as we discovered in new research, the America of those without college degrees has been scarred by death and a staggeringly shorter life span.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told Republican lawmakers that the House will vote Tuesday afternoon on a motion to table a resolution to remove him as speaker, according to two people familiar with the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Monday introduced the resolution to remove McCarthy from his leadership position after weeks of threatening to do because McCarthy passed a stopgap measure to fund the government with Democratic support.

McCarthy has so far tried to project confidence, posting a defiant message on social media Monday night — “Bring it on” — and casting Gaetz as a part of a vocal minority in the Republican conference.

“I’m a conservative who wants to get things done,” McCarthy said on CNBC on Tuesday morning. “I have some conservatives that don’t want to do anything.”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he planned to call a vote on Tuesday on the right-wing move to oust him from his post, after declaring that he had no intention of giving Democrats any concessions in exchange for helping him survive.

“I’m confident,” Mr. McCarthy said of his ability to defeat the effort to remove him, as he dismissed the idea of making a deal with Democrats. He said he had told Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader: “You guys do whatever you need to do” on the vote.

Either Mr. McCarthy or one of his allies is expected to try to quash the effort to oust him, led by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, by asking the House to “table,” or kill, Mr. Gaetz’s resolution. But the speaker’s slim majority and the number of right-wing rebels in favor of ousting him mean he has little chance of winning that vote — which requires a majority — without at least some support from Democrats.

The House was scheduled to hold its first votes of the day around 1:30 p.m.

Speaker after speaker in the Democrats’ closed-door meeting rose to speak against helping McCarthy, saying he can’t be trusted and Democrats must remain united against helping him, said Representative Mark Takano of California. “We don’t have an obligation to save this speaker,” he said.