GOP House Members Wants To Renominate McCarthy

Moments after the House voted 216-to-210 to unseat Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy, several Republican lawmakers signaled they were ready Tuesday evening to renominate the deposed speaker on the next vote for his old job.

Eight Republican House members led by McCarthy nemesis Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz joined with every Democrat on the House floor to make McCarthy the third speaker to be the target of a "motion to vacate the chair" and the first in history to be ousted.

But McCarthy maintained considerable loyalty in his own conference.

"If he wants to do it [run on the next ballot], I'm for him," Michigan Rep. John Moolenaar told Newsmax moments after the historic vote, "He's done a great job as speaker and still has strong support among our members."

Moolenaar voiced the animosity several members had privately expressed about Gaetz, who was key to delaying McCarthy's seemingly routine election as speaker for a week in January.

"How ironic!" he told us, "Matt Gaetz attacks Speaker McCarthy for working across the aisle with Democrats [to pass a Continuing Resolution to fund the government for 45 days] and it was through Democratic votes he got his wish."

McCarthy and his lieutenants are expected to make an effort to bring the few Republicans who missed the vote — among them Texas Rep. John Carter and Florida's Rep. Anna Paulina Luna — back to Washington for the next vote.

Another Republican House member expected to lead the movement to run McCarthy on the next ballot is his fellow Californian Rep. Tom McClintock. Before the vote, conservative swashbuckler and eight-termer McClintock delivered an impassioned speech in support of McCarthy on the House floor.

Over the weekend, McClintock warned that it would take a handful of Republican members to join with the full Democratic Conference to depose McCarthy.

"That happened in California in 1994," he told us, recalling how Republicans actually won a slim majority in the California Assembly in 1994 but Democrat Speaker Willie Brown remained in power through the votes of a few renegade Republicans. "If that happens here, the Republican House majority is effectively ended."

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.