Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) poked fun at the Republican party on an eventful Tuesday where House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) opened an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) threatened to remove McCarthy as speaker.
Ocasio-Cortez took to X, retweeting a C-SPAN clip of Gaetz’s threat against McCarthy. In the clip, Gaetz said that McCarthy needed to move faster than the “baby step” of opening the impeachment inquiry. He called for more progress or for McCarthy to step down as speaker.
“So let me get this straight: Republicans are threatening to remove their own Speaker, impeach the President, and shut down the government on September 30th – disrupting everyday people’s paychecks and general public operations. For what? I don’t think even they know. Chaos vibes,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.
Gaetz, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, has been pushing for Biden’s impeachment over allegations the president’s son, Hunter Biden, used his father’s position as leverage in business deals. Despite a House investigation of the elder Biden poring over 12,000 pages of bank records, plus 2,000 suspicious activity reports, according to The Hill, there has been no evidence of wrongdoing on behalf of the President.
Gaetz has been pressuring McCarthy on impeachment with a new rule allowing any House member to call a “motion to vacate.” Once such a motion is called, a vote happens to remove the speaker.
On Monday, Gaetz announced he would argue on the House floor in favor of booting McCarthy from the speakership; shortly after, news leaked that McCarthy would likely open an inquiry this week. Soon after the leak was reported, McCarthy did.
Despite McCarthy opening the inquiry, Gaetz went ahead with his planned speech Tuesday.
“I rise today to serve notice, Mr. Speaker, that you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role,” Gaetz said. “The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into total, immediate compliance or remove you.”
Gaetz told his fellow Republicans to block a continuing resolution that would fund the government past the September 30 deadline, according to The New York Times. He said that if McCarthy were to call a vote on a continuing resolution, “it is going to be shot, chaser, continuing resolution, motion to vacate.” He later told reporters that he would file a motion to vacate at the start of every legislative day, according to the Times.
Even if the House voted to impeach Biden—which itself is unlikely, given the slim Republican majority and the fact that a number of Republicans are against it—the Senate is unlikely to convict. A number of Republican senators told The Hill that without evidence, articles of impeachment would likely be dismissed before reaching the trial stage.
Representative Ken Buck (R-CO), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, a critic of past impeachment efforts, praised McCarthy for not holding a floor vote on opening the inquiry, instead sending it directly to the Oversight Committee.
“The House should be focusing on spending instead,” Buck said on MSNBC. “We have to make sure the government doesn’t shut down. We have to get our job done. And I think taking this off the table and not having a distraction is a good move.”
While Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has pushed for impeachment, she is against Gaetz’s threats of a motion to vacate, telling reporters Monday “I think that’s the wrong thing to do.”