The last House Democrat willing to help Kevin McCarthy keep the speakership if a motion to vacate is filed has withdrawn his offer due to Biden impeachment.
If the Speaker had been thinking of looking across the aisle for aid in case of a right-wing revolt, Representative Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat, withdrew his offer to help.
Phillips said Thursday he had reeled in that potential lifeline after McCarthy abandoned any attempt at bipartisanship by starting the impeachment inquiry and otherwise “pandering” to a small group of hardliners.
A rebellion is brewing against McCarthy because the Speaker wants to pass a short-term funding bill to prevent a government shutdown. There is a hardline group of far-right House Republicans that are opposed to any short-term funding bill, and they are threatening to fire McCarthy if he works with Democrats to pass one.
Speaker McCarthy got House Republicans together for a meeting that was supposed to be about investigations but used it to talk about the government funding bill instead. He told his caucus that they wouldn’t win a government shutdown and dared them to fire him through a motion to vacate.
Democrats didn’t help McCarthy when he was fighting to become Speaker. Rep. Phillips did have a standing offer to help McCarthy because he did not believe in what Republicans have been threatening the Speaker with on the motion to vacate, but he withdrew that offer once Kevin McCarthy caved to the far-right on the evidence-free Biden impeachment investigation.
Kevin McCarthy has no Democratic friends, and if MAGA comes for him, he will be on his own.