On Sunday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) expressed the House Democrats’ belief that it is not the job of Democrats to save Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN’s State of the Union when asked how she would vote on a motion for Kevin McCarthy to vacate, “My vote beginning this term for Speaker of the House was for Hakeem Jeffries and I do not intend on voting for a Republican speaker of the House, but I believe that it’s up to the Republican conference to determine their own leadership and deal with their own problems. But it’s not up to Democrats to save Republicans from themselves, especially.”
AOC also said that if McCarthy wanted to rely on Democratic votes to stay in power, Democrats aren’t going to give up their votes for free and that she didn’t expect any House Democrats to vote to keep McCarthy as speaker, “I certainly don’t think that we would expect to see that unless there’s a real conversation between the Republican and Democratic caucuses and Republican and Democratic leadership about what that would mean. But I don’t think we give up votes for free.”
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If Democrats aren’t going to bail out McCarthy, the House will shut down once Gaetz files his motion to vacate. It will likely be the same situation as January where the MAGAs will have no replacement for McCarthy and the Speaker won’t have the votes to keep his job.
The last fiasco took a week to resolve. McCarthy has already promised to wear his opposition down through multiple votes. He mentioned 50 as a possibility. If the House spends a month or more fighting over who will be speaker, it could take the country straight into the next government shutdown.
Democrats aren’t going to bail out Kevin McCarthy, as Republicans need to figure out their own mess.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
