The day after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s astonishing capitulation that allowed Democrats to once more save the day and keep the government funded, Rep. Matt Gaetz was in front of the cameras promising that he would move to oust McCarthy this week. It’s not clear how much support the Florida man has among the other hard-liners in the Republican conference, but it could be a dozen or more, according to House conservatives. That means McCarthy’s fate is absolutely in Democrats’ hands. He can survive only if Democrats help him, and as of now, they’re not inclined to do that.
President Joe Biden isn’t going to go out of his way to help, telling reporters that it’s up to House Democratic leadership to decide if they want to bail McCarthy out again. Biden then turned the screws on McCarthy with a direct statement telling McCarthy to step up on funding for Ukraine, which was left out of the stopgap government funding bill.