McCarthy Says They Will Move To Remove Pelosi As Speaker if She Attempts Impeachment

Last week, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he was not interested in pursuing a removal of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House after members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are trying to convince him to take up the effort.

Following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and threats by Pelosi to potentially take up another impeachment effort against President Trump, McCarthy has reversed course on that position.

“Listening to the Speaker on television this weekend, if she tries to move for an impeachment based upon the president following the Constitution, I think there will be a move on the floor to have her no longer be the Speaker. She may think she has a quiver, we do too,” McCarthy said at a press conference this morning.”

In a tweet that included the video of the press conference, McCarthy said, “Democrat leadership is considering a half-baked gambit to impeach the President—again. It won’t work. You’d think “a master legislator” would know that.”

Democrat leadership is considering a half-baked gambit to impeach the President—again. It won't work. You'd think "a master legislator" would know that. https://t.co/oDT48jW9xJ

— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) September 23, 2020

When McCarthy spoke with Laura Ingraham a week ago about it, he said at the time, “What I’m in favor of is defeating Nancy Pelosi and [Jerry] Nadler and all the others,” McCarthy said as he made his pitch for Republicans deposing Pelosi, D-Calif., the old-fashioned way — by winning elections on Nov. 3.”

“If we were able to remove Nancy Pelosi you’d have another Democrat. The real challenge would be we’re … four weeks away from [the] election, or 40-some days. These Democrats could actually vote against Nancy Pelosi, use it in their campaigns to say they’re not with her, even though they vote with her 95% of the time,” he continued.

However, if the vote is forced it could put moderate Democrats in the uncomfortable spot of backing the controversial Pelosi on the record or publicly spurning their caucus’ leader.

It would take all 198 Republicans and Rep. Justin Amash, L-Mich. to universally stand behind a motion to remove Pelosi and they would need to court 17 Democrats to join them.

McCarthy also said in the previous interview that “there are fewer Democrats in the House since Nancy Pelosi held the gavel” and he pointed out, “At that moment we needed 19 seats to win the majority, today we only need 17.”

“We won every special election we played in and that was in Democrat seats that Democrats won by 9 more than points and it happened to be in California,” he added.