By Richard Cowan and Moira Warburton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy faced a threat to his leadership on Monday as fellow Republican Matt Gaetz said he would try to oust him this week in a move that could plunge Congress into crisis days after dodging a partial government shutdown.

Gaetz, who has clashed with McCarthy for months, said he would file a motion that would set up a vote to remove McCarthy as speaker.

“We have a lot of folks in Congress who I think would be very capable to serve as speaker. We need to rebuild trust,” Gaetz told reporters.

He did not say who he had in mind, or whether he had the votes to succeed.

McCarthy leads a narrow and fractious 221-212 majority whose members in recent weeks have repeatedly blocked measures he has brought to the House floor, meaning that as few as five defections from his party could threaten his hold on power, if Democrats all vote against him.

McCarthy has said he expects he will survive Gaetz’s challenge. “I think it’s disruptive to the country, and my focus is surely only on getting our work done,” he told reporters.

Gaetz, from Florida, was one of more than a dozen far-right Republicans who repeatedly voted against McCarthy’s bid for speaker in January. McCarthy ultimately secured the gavel after 15 rounds of voting.

As a condition of winning that January vote, McCarthy agreed to a rules change that allowed any one member to call for a vote to oust the speaker, setting the stage for Gaetz’s move.

No U.S. House speaker has ever been removed from the position that puts the holder second in line in succession for the presidency after the vice president.

Gaetz was angered by McCarthy’s move to pass a short-term funding bill on Saturday with support from opposition Democrats to keep the government fully operating and avoid a shutdown.

Gaetz said he had spoken to former President Donald Trump about his effort. Trump, the leading Republican candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, faces four criminal indictments and several civil cases.

Under pressure from Gaetz and other hardline Republicans, McCarthy has sought deep spending cuts and abandoned a spending deal he struck with President Joe Biden in May, after the U.S. came within days of defaulting on its $31.4 trillion in debt.

DEMOCRATS DEBATE NEXT MOVE

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has not said if his caucus would join right-wing Republicans to help topple McCarthy or if Democrats might support him in exchange for political or legislative favors.

Democrats are angered by McCarthy’s drive for spending cuts and his backing of a impeachment inquiry into Biden. They are also upset that he gave them little time to read the stopgap spending bill before the vote, even though he needed their support.

Democrats, in theory, could demand that McCarthy honor his spending deal with Biden, drop the impeachment inquiry, or hold votes on gun and immigration legislation.

Democrats are due to meet later in the day to weigh their options.

The White House has characterized Republicans as unreliable and extreme during the spending fight.

“What we’re seeing with House Republicans is pure chaos,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

The stopgap bill passed on Saturday did not include $6 billion in aid to Ukraine, which is backed by Democrats and many Senate Republicans, but opposed by right-wing House Republicans like Gaetz.

It is unclear whether Congress will approve that money.

On the House floor, Gaetz accused McCarthy of having a “secret side deal” with Democrats to approve Ukraine aid.

McCarthy said there was no secret plan and said the Biden administration needs to provide more detail on how that money would be spent.

“Our members have a lot of questions, especially on the accountability provisions of what we want to see with the money that gets sent,” he said.

The House and Senate have until Nov. 17 to either pass spending legislation for the current fiscal year or pass another stopgap measure to avoid a shutdown.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Makini Brice, Katharine Jackson, Doina Chiacu and Moira Warburton; writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Cynthia Osterman and Alistair Bell)

SOURCE: https://news.yahoo.com/us-house-speaker-mccarthy-braces-100522799.html