McCarthy brushes off Gaetz’s threats to oust him: ‘Bring it on’

On Sunday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) shot back at Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), threatening to file a motion to vacate this week.

Gaetz has said since the beginning of September that if McCarthy were to put a clean continuing resolution on the floor, as he did on Saturday, he would move forward with a motion to vacate.

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So, earlier in the day, re-upping the threats he has made continually over the past month, Gaetz told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he plans to file a motion to vacate to oust McCarthy as speaker this week.

“I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week. I think we need to rip off the band-aid,” Gaetz said. “I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy.”

McCarthy was then asked about the ultimatum on Face the Nation later in the day, where he brushed off the threat and challenged him to follow through, saying, “I’ll survive.”

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“[Gaetz] is more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something. He wanted to push us into a shutdown, even threatening his own district with all the military people who would not be paid only because he wants to take this motion,” McCarthy said. “So be it. Bring it on, let’s get over with it, and let’s start governing.”

In order to oust a speaker, Gaetz will need 218 votes on his motion to vacate; he claims that he has “a requisite number of House Republicans, a sufficient number to ensure that we don’t own McCarthy anymore,” but admitted that he thinks his motion will fail at first because some Democrats will vote against his motion.