Political scientist on McCarthy’s removal: “There is great discontent in the party”

House Speaker McCarthy has been voted out. There is great discontent – even within the Republican Party, explains US expert Claudia Brühwiler in an interview.

tagesschau.de: What is happening in the USA right now is a historic moment. If the position of speaker is not filled, the chamber of Congress is practically unable to act. How does this affect politics?

Claudia Brühlwiler: It is actually the case that the so-called Speaker pro Tempore, i.e. the current replacement for Kevin McCarthy, Republican Patrick McHenry, can do nothing other than adjourn the chamber. He can then announce the nomination of a new speaker and organize the corresponding elections.

McHenry has already announced that he would like to hear the first candidates who could succeed McCarthy next Tuesday. Ideally, this should be voted on on Wednesday.

“McCarthy had prepared the ejector seat”

tagesschau.de: That means that Congress will be paralyzed until then. What does it say about the political system in the USA? Isn’t it a bit dysfunctional?

Brühlwiler: It says less about the system itself than it does about the state of the Republican Party. McCarthy had to make major compromises when he was elected speaker in January.

After 15 rounds of voting, he agreed that the speaker could be voted out with just one vote, the so-called ‘motion to vacate the speaker seat’, and he would have to vacate the seat. Because McCarthy agreed to this approach, he actually prepared his own ejection seat.

Now there are already voices saying that you won’t find a new speaker that way because nobody wants to get involved in a deal like that.

Disagreement within the Republicans

tagesschau.de: Let’s look again at the Republicans as a unit. What does it say about the party when people drop someone from their own camp so quickly?

Brühlwiler: Yes, and so simple too. It only took eight Republicans to oppose him and, of course, the Democrats, who also voted against him. The Democrats also did not offer a hand so that McCarthy could have stayed in office longer. You can see a lot of disagreement among the Republicans, especially on the right. Added to this is an unwillingness to offer a hand – for the good of the party and ultimately for the good of the country.

Matt Gaetz, the ringleader in this matter, appears to be primarily concerned with his own agenda. He is personally looking ahead to 2026, when he may be able to run for governor of Florida.

“Conservatives tired of ‘snipers'”

tagesschau.de: Matt Gaetz has now asserted himself as a hardliner. Can we perhaps conclude from this that the conservative Republicans are moving even more to the right?

Brühlwiler: No, I don’t think you can conclude that yet. After all, there is now a lot of discontent in the party. Even Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Republican representative from Georgia, who is said to be close to the QAnon conspiracy theory, emphasizes that you would not find a better speaker than McCarthy.

This suggests that people in the conservative camp are also tired of these ‘snipers’ and that they would actually like to pursue more constructive politics. Especially in a year when the elections are approaching and you actually have to show the Americans that you can work in a solution-oriented manner.

“Funds for Ukraine are running out”

tagesschau.de: A new state budget should actually be decided in a few weeks. What effect does the removal of the speaker have on a global level?

Brühlwiler: At the global level, the main thing we should be concerned about is that aid to Ukraine was not included in the budget compromise that McCarthy reached at the weekend. A package of six billion US dollars was canceled. Of course, at the moment there are still funds for Ukraine, but they are running out.

And one would hope that Ukraine would again take up a position in the new budget, which must be in place after the transition budget expires on November 17th. But at the moment we are focusing on electing a new speaker.

And here it will be important to see what kind of person will take on this role and what compromises the right-wing fringe might make in order to make it possible to find a speaker.

The interview was conducted by Damla Hekimoğlu for tagesschau24.