Kevin McCarthy voted out as US speaker — first to be so ousted

Kevin McCarthy will not run for speaker again after the House ousted him from the top leadership post in a historic vote on Tuesday, a move that threatens to plunge House Republicans into even further chaos and turmoil.

The House will now need to elect a new speaker. There is no clear alternative to McCarthy who would have the support needed to win the gavel, but the race for a potential successor is already underway.

The vote to oust McCarthy and his decision not to run for the speakership again marks a major escalation in tensions for a House GOP conference that has been mired in infighting – and it comes just days after McCarthy successfully engineered a last-minute bipartisan effort to avert a government shutdown. No House speaker has ever before been ousted through the passage of a resolution to remove them.

Afterwards, McCarthy told lawmakers he would not run for speakership again, leaving the gavel up for grabs.

“I may have lost this vote today, but as I walk out of this chamber, I feel fortunate to have served,” McCarthy said at a press conference at the Capitol.

Patrick McHenry would temporarily serve in the role until a new speaker is elected.

Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, said President Joe Biden “hopes the house will quickly elect a speaker. The president looks forward to working with them”.

Matt Gaetz, the far right Florida congressman who launched the moves to remove McCarthy, said ahead of the vote that “Speaker McCarthy has failed to take a stand where it matters. So if he won’t, I will”.

McCarthy got off to a rocky start as speaker in January, after democrats ceded control of the house to the republicans in the mid-term elections.

He secured the speakership after heated exchanges — which almost saw fellow republicans come to blows — and 15 rounds of voting. He had been opposed by a handful of members of his own party.

McCarthy’s leadership was recently questioned within the GOP (as the republican party is also known) after he reached a deal with democrats to avoid a government shutdown over the weekend.

The deal meant that republicans could not push through a bill that would have imposed dramatic cuts of as much as 30 percent on a number of Biden’s social programmes.

On Monday, Gaetz commenced moves to remove McCarthy as speaker, alleging that the Californian had betrayed the GOP by working on a deal with democrats to avoid a shutdown of government.

McCarthy responded to Gaetz’s plot with “bring it on”. Hours later, he became the first US speaker to be removed from the role through a congressional vote.