The Horse Race: GOP Primary Candidates Agree: McCarthy's Ouster Was a Distracting Waste of Time

with Brittany Bernstein

Wednesday, October 04, 2023

GOP Primary Candidates Agree: McCarthy's Ouster Was a Distracting Waste of Time

Zach Kessel here, filling in for Brittany Bernstein.

GOP primary candidates want voters to know that they do not approve of their fellow Republicans in Washington.

As GOP infighting, egged on by House Democrats, brought down Kevin McCarthy's speakership in a historic vote Tuesday afternoon, nearly every Republican on the campaign trail reacted with weary bewilderment — save for Vivek Ramaswamy, who, in keeping with his upstart persona, applauded Representative Matt Gaetz's rebellion.

Even President Trump, a stalwart McCarthy ally, and his chief rival Ron DeSantis agreed: McCarthy's ouster was an unproductive distraction from the business at hand.

DeSantis, who was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, clashed with McCarthy in September. DeSantis reportedly called Republicans opposing McCarthy's negotiations with House Democrats, urging them to "keep fighting" against a deal that ultimately succeeded in forestalling a government shutdown. At the time, his campaign said the governor wanted "congressional Republicans to hold the line in this current spending standoff and end days of rubber stamping multi-trillion dollar spending bills that harm the American people."

McCarthy, for his part, said DeSantis was "not at the same level" as former president Donald Trump and "would not have gotten elected" in Florida's 2018 gubernatorial race without Trump's endorsement. The governor agreed that he and Trump are very different leaders: "In Florida, we run budget surpluses. We've paid down our debt. I've kept every one of my promises. Meanwhile, McCarthy and Trump worked together to add $7 trillion — more debt than our country racked up in its first 200 years — to the debt in just four years."

Yesterday, hours before the House voted on Gaetz's motion, DeSantis addressed the chaos in the lower chamber, continuing to tie Trump to the former speaker. The Florida governor said he "opposed McCarthy when it wasn't cool years ago, and he's really somebody that Donald Trump has backed and put into that position." While he made clear he's no McCarthy fan, DeSantis also argued that the motion to vacate was "performative," calling it "the typical theatrics that we're used to seeing."

Trump, for his part, admonished Republicans for fighting among themselves when they have the Left to contend with, but stayed above the fray by refusing to express support for Gaetz or McCarthy.

"Why is it that Republicans are always fighting among themselves, why aren't they fighting the Radical Left Democrats who are destroying our country," Trump wrote on TruthSocial.