GOP Rep Says Republicans Needed Recess After Speaker Ouster: ‘You Would Have Seen Fists Thrown’

GOP Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana said the House Republican conference needed a week’s recess to “decompress” after a contentious vote that removed Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as House speaker.

McCarthy (R-CA) lost his speakership on Tuesday largely due to an effort by a fellow Republican, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. Gaetz led a group of seven other Republicans to vote with the Democrats to remove McCarthy over what Gaetz said was the speaker’s ineffective leadership. McCarthy said that Gaetz held a personal grudge.

After the vote and a subsequent conference meeting, Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina took over as House speaker pro tempore until a new speaker can be elected. McHenry ordered a week’s recess in one of his first moves as interim speaker.

Graves, a McCarthy ally, appeared on CNN on Wednesday and said he agreed with McHenry’s decision to send lawmakers home for a week, even though the House is facing another government funding deadline next month. Graves said that had Republicans stayed in Washington, D.C., meetings might have come to blows over McCarthy’s ouster.

“I’ll be really candid. I think if we had stayed together in the meeting last night, I think you would have seen fists thrown. I’m not being dramatic when I say that. There is a lot of raw emotions right now. I think it was best to let folks go back home, decompress a little bit, and then come back together,” Graves told CNN host Jake Tapper.

The speaker race has so far attracted two GOP contenders: Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. Graves declined to endorse either of the candidates, citing the need to reform House rules first to make the speakership a more solid job. Graves said that Gaetz or any other Republican should not have the power to unilaterally bring a motion to vacate against the speaker.

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“I think what would make sense before we even get into the speaker’s race is, number one, within the Republican conference there is a rule that Matt Gaetz already violated yesterday that prohibits any one person from bringing up a motion to vacate. Problem is the rule doesn’t have any penalty or enforcement action,” Graves said. “Secondly, I think the conference should come together and change the House rules to raise the threshold on a motion to vacate above just one.”

The House speaker is “third in line to the president of the United States. We don’t subject the president or the vice president to that type of low threshold. The United States needs to have more stability than we saw yesterday,” Graves said.

GOP Congressman @RepGarretGraves: There'd have been fist fights if we didn't recess pic.twitter.com/1cEzivVHyz

— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) October 5, 2023