'Force me out': McCarthy won’t leave speaker’s office despite being ousted over 2 weeks ago

20 October 2023

Even though he was the first speaker of the House to lose his job in a motion to vacate filed by members of his own party, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) is still occupying the speaker's physical office in the US Capitol. And even though movers were seen carrying boxes from the office bearing McCarthy's initials, the ousted former speaker is not in any hurry to leave.

A new Washington Post report suggests the California Republican has some leftover feelings of bitterness associated with being unceremoniously tossed out of his role as second in line to the presidency.

"They'll have to force me out," McCarthy reportedly said with a laugh as he walked beneath a plaque above the office that read in gold letters, "Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy."

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"It’s all cleaned out; I’m just waiting for them to elect somebody," McCarthy said.

The Post quoted several tourists who remarked at the sign.

"They're going to need to change that," one mother told her teen.

"I'm kind of surprised it's still up," a father touring the capitol said to his child.

Whereas the speaker's office itself is just a few steps away from the House floor, McCarthy's ordinary congressional office is on the fourth floor of the Rayburn House Office Building, which is a much further walk away. Until House Republicans elect a new speaker, McCarthy seems content with occupying his former office to huddle with his colleagues and House Republican Conference leadership as it struggles to unite its caucus around a new speaker.

Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), who put forth the motion to vacate that ultimately led to Kevin McCarthy's ouster, told the Post that the former speaker using the speaker's office to hold court with fellow Republicans is "peak McCarthy."

"To McCarthy, image and performance were always more important than reality," Gaetz said. "If they weren’t, he might not be a squatter in that office today."

That isn't Gaetz's first use of the "squatter" term. In January of 2023, before McCarthy was eventually elected speaker on the 15th ballot, Gaetz accused McCarthy of squatting in the speaker's office without earning the votes to hold the title. The Florida Republican even wrote a letter to the architect of the Capitol after the third failed ballot asking when McCarthy would be "considered a squatter" in the office.

"Maybe they can even make a pretend gavel for him to swing around as he clings to the memory that he was once a failed speaker for nine months," Gaetz told the Post in its latest report.

As of this writing, the House of Representatives has been without a speaker for nearly three weeks. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) remains the House Republican Conference's speaker designee, though he has so far failed to capture the 217 votes required to obtain the speaker's gavel.

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