The accusation made by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and others, that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had made a secret deal with President Joe Biden to revive new military aid to Ukraine, was not the cause of McCarthy’s ouster as Speaker. Nor was the volatility of the GOP caucus in the House new: The two previous Republican Speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, both resigned the job before they could be “vacated” from it.
The strong shock to NATO’s Ukrainiacs was delivered by the Sept. 30 vote for a 45-day continuing resolution (CR) which allowed no new military aid to Ukraine—and not by the ouster of McCarthy. Moreover, a relationship between the removal of the very mediocre McCarthy as Speaker, and that Sept. 30 CR vote, is not clear. What has been made clear by the sponsor of the move to “vacate the chair,” Representative Gaetz, is the relationship between his action and ongoing U.S. economic self-destruction.
Consider again what happened:
On Sept. 30, a 126-90 majority of Republicans and all but one Democrat voted for a 45-day CR which clearly deleted any new Ukraine aid, at least for 45 days. What “stunned official Washington,” commented Politico, was that the House Democrats all backed it. Then President Joe Biden, on Oct. 1, said he “expect[ed] Speaker McCarthy to keep his commitment to secure passage and support needed” to fund Ukraine militarily. This highly public Presidential claim, of a “commitment” or “secret promise” by McCarthy to Biden, was as suspect as Biden himself. It made for a good incendiary device under McCarthy’s chair.
