MAGA-inspired House rebellion against McCarthy leaves chaos on Capitol Hill: ANALYSIS

When the final words came down on Tuesday from the chamber's presiding officer, there was a hush in the previously raucous chamber -- a momentarily silent acknowledgement of the history that had just been made.

"The office of speaker of the House of the United States House of Representatives is hereby declared vacant."

The potential fallout is vast. With Kevin McCarthy removed from his role by a small faction of his own party, the House is now, for all intents and purposes, paralyzed on accomplishing its most important tasks -- with no speaker in place and no roadmap for effective governance, even as new deadlines approach to continue funding the federal government and pass bills that might actually become law in a divided Washington.

The vote to oust McCarthy -- launched by Republican hard-line Rep. Matt Gaetz, embraced by seven conservative colleagues and helped along by Democrats who declined to save McCarthy's job -- was a long time coming. One could blame the debt and spending agreements he cut this year to keep the government open and to keep the country's credit intact; or the side deals reached to allow him to become speaker in the first place; or the slash-and-burn political styles that have become the new normal of Congress.

But in the end, what happened on Tuesday never happened before because there's never been a dynamic quite like the one now inside the House Republican conference -- or inside the GOP writ large. Former President Donald Trump changed the political landscape in a way that made the historic vote possible, even while the Trump-aligned MAGA movement evolves even beyond his own control.

After spending solid chunks of the last eight years attacking the GOP establishment, Trump largely stayed out of this week's fight on Capitol Hill. He posted on social media Tuesday, a day consumed by yet another of his court appearances, to ask why Republicans "are always fighting among themselves."

Trump counts both McCarthy and Gaetz, the Florida lawmaker who led the campaign against the speaker, among his acolytes. Gaetz didn't point to Trump for giving him the idea of targeting McCarthy, but he hinted at Trump approving of the concept.

"My conversations with the former president leave me quite confident that we're doing the right thing," Gaetz told reporters shortly after the vote to oust McCarthy.

But that was by no means the unanimous feeling among erstwhile friends and allies of Gaetz. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio -- a frequent Gaetz companion in defending Trump and attacking President Joe Biden -- spoke from the House floor to defend McCarthy amid debate on the motion to remove him, while Gaetz shot back questioning the efficacy of Jordan's oversight efforts.

Another McCarthy ally, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., predicted "week after week of fruitless ballots" to replace the deposed speaker. McClintock warned that the vote would "effectively end" Republican control of Congress -- something Democrats are looking to make happen, with quick fundraising appeals capitalizing on the chaos.

Judgments from other Republicans were even more fierce. In advance of the final votes, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich began calling for Gaetz to be expelled from the GOP conference.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., called Gaetz a "polarizing figure who does a lot of damage." Another 2024 GOP presidential candidate, former Vice President Mike Pence, called the exercise "political performance art" and even predicted that McCarthy could be chosen again as speaker.

"Chaos is never America's friend. And it's never a friend to American families that are struggling," Pence said Tuesday at an event across town in Washington.

That was at least a subtle reminder of the business that won't get done in the nation's capital for the foreseeable future. Another White House hopeful, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, called it "failure theater."

"I think a lot of that is performative," DeSantis said of his fellow Floridian's "motion to vacate" the speakership. "I can tell you this: Our voters want to see results."

DeSantis also said he opposed McCarthy back when "it wasn't cool" -- and that McCarthy was arguably only speaker in the first place because Trump weighed in on his behalf back in January.

One of the ironies of McCarthy being targeted by MAGA wrath stems from the lengths he went to in efforts to stay close to Trump. McCarthy is a pragmatist who strenuously but briefly broke with Trump after Jan. 6, but his trip to Mar-a-Lago weeks later marked a major moment in the former president's political rehabilitation.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries effectively sealed McCarthy's fate by citing his own words and actions -- including his fealty to Trump.

"Given their unwillingness to break from MAGA extremism in an authentic and comprehensive manner, House Democratic leadership will vote yes on the pending Republican Motion to Vacate the Chair," Jeffries wrote in a public letter to colleagues before the voting on Tuesday.

That motion succeeded, despite warnings from House Republicans about what would ensue without a permanent speaker in place. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., became speaker pro tempore, an interim role, under the first-ever use of a post-9/11 succession plan for House leadership -- a law that anticipated a terrorist attack, not a political one.

In the end, the chaos on Capitol Hill seems like the logical next step for a Republican Party that has been thrashing against itself for much of the last decade, with Trump often at the center of the action. But that doesn't align with political logic -- and offers no real hints of what comes next.