Kevin McCarthy once again proves Democrats did the right thing by voting him out

Less than two weeks after suffering an historic humiliation at the hands of his own party, former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy once again tried to blame his circumstances and those of the House of Representatives on… Democrats.

In a lengthy exchange with CNN correspondent Manu Raju, McCarthy repeatedly blamed House Democrats for his ouster, the House recess, and the potential consequences to federal employees—including U.S. troops.

These five minutes of breathtaking projection and revisionist history are remarkable only in that they utterly vindicate the decision of Hakeem Jeffries and House Democrats to decline to rescue McCarthy’s Speakership from Matt Gaetz and seven other Republicans.

The argument, perhaps best embodied in a Daily Beast op-ed by conservative Matt Lewis, is essentially that House Democrats had a moral and political obligation to protect McCarthy because his successor—Jim Jordan, for example—would likely be much worse.

In an alternate universe with a very different Kevin McCarthy and a very different set of facts, that argument would have merit. But in our universe, with our Kevin McCarthy, and the set of facts we actually experienced, the absurdity of Lewis’s argument is further cemented by this exchange between McCarthy and Raju.

Though almost certainly less ideologically deranged than Jim Jordan, Kevin McCarthy was indefensibly bad in all the ways that actually matter. As Speaker, he was a brinkman, a liar, and a persistently bad faith actor.

As a reminder: right out the gate, McCarthy risked global economic catastrophe with the debt ceiling crisis. Though perfectly content to raise the debt ceiling multiple times without spending cuts under Donald Trump, he employed the age-old Republican tactic of threatening a default to extort a Democratic president for budgetary concessions. McCarthy was willing to risk the American people’s financial ruin rather than simply allow President Biden to pay the nation’s bills, some of which accrued under Trump.

Then, after negotiating a deal with the President pertaining to future budget spending levels, McCarthy reneged. He allowed far-right members of the Republican conference to push bills with extreme budgetary cuts, rather than honor the budget negotiated between House and Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans—which was commensurate with the commitment he made to the President back in May.

McCarthy folded in the eleventh hour, allowing a 45-day continuing resolution that kept federal spending at the levels negotiated between himself and the President. But—and this is vital—even this constitutes a violation of the deal between them. Biden and McCarthy agreed to a full fiscal budget, not a continuing resolution, which is essentially a 45-day stopgap measure.

Moreover, the day after the continuing resolution passed (thanks primarily to Democrats, who voted for it in greater numbers than Republicans), McCarthy attempted to publicly blame Democrats for the near-shutdown, prompting sharp pushback from Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan.

Additionally, in between the debt ceiling and government shutdown crises, McCarthy betrayed his word on another major promise: that he would not allow a formal impeachment inquiry into the President without a full vote in the House of Representatives and majority support. He publicly reiterated that promise a mere 12 days before breaking it.

Between all this and McCarthy’s persistent rejection of any bipartisan deal to save his Speakership, it’s abundantly clear that House Democrats made the right call.

Whatever differences exist between McCarthy and someone like Jim Jordan, their similarities—dishonesty, brinkmanship, and bad faith—make them both unfit for the Speakership.