Gaetz vows to move this week to boot McCarthy

“I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week,” Gaetz said.

…Rep. Matt Gaetz will move to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House, the hardliner said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Just today. So the issue will be joined…Or will it? “I do intend” is not “I will”; “this week” is not Monday, when he could. Maybe Gaetz can count and maybe he can’t; he couldn’t in the Speaker vote in January. Another Repube was quoted yesterday saying that a motion to vacate the chair will be filed, just "not yet". 

A motion to vacate takes a simple majority, 218 votes. Nominally, Repubes have 221. If four vote for the motion to vacate and four Dems don’t defect and vote for (or present) McCarthy will be ousted. Former Dem Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said McCarthy cannot be trusted and Dems should not rescue him. On McCarthy's lack of trusworthiness there is wide bipartisan agreement. Pelosi has also said House Dems should follow Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Jeffries has said all Dems should stick together. He has also said he is not dealing in hypotheticals about a motion to vacate. 

All of those statements are ambiguous. All House Democrats did stick together against McCarthy in the Speaker vote. All House Dems save one did stick together with McCarthy in the stopgap funding vote last night. 

Last night can be seen as an emergency vote, not a normal. The Speaker vote can be seen as the normal for a Speaker vote, which is what a motion to vacate essentially is. If sticking together is Jeffries' plus ultra then all Dems will vote for McCarthy or all Dems will vote against McCarthy. The former is an absurdity and will not happen. The latter is the chalk. But...If four Dems defect and effectively vote for McCarthy he will remain Speaker. 

It seems to me that the real enemy for Hakeem Jeffries and the vast majority of House Repubes is the Taliban and defeating them is the sine qua non. If that is the case then, at cost to his leadership, Jeffries will wink and four Dems will vote against the motion to vacate and for McCarthy.