AOC launches scathing takedown blaming McCarthy for his own ouster: ‘He signed up to be held hostage’

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox

Get our free Inside Washington email

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

New York Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Instagram to explain what she called the “wild, historic day” in the United States when House SpeakerKevin McCarthy was ousted from his post — a move the Democrat blamed on Mr McCarthy himself.

“The United States of America currently does not have a Speaker of the House,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said in a video.

She explained what happened in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, placing the blame on Mr McCarthy’s leadership for this end result.

Mr McCarthy “made all of these promises to all of these people, many of which were either incompatible or tangled, and it makes it very difficult for you to lead when you make so many promises and you have to uphold them. Then, they are contradictory and its very difficult for you to govern after doing that,” the New York Democrat said.

Under the current congressional rules, a single member is allowed to file a motion to vacate. “So that has meant that for the last nine months, Kevin McCarthy signed up to be held hostage. And he has been held hostage.”

“Any time one of the most extreme members of the Republican Party wanted something, they would threaten Kevin McCarthy with this motion to vacate,” she added. That has contributed to Mr McCarthy having to govern in “extreme, bizarre ways…just yielding all of this power to an extreme right-wing.”

That House rule came into play after the government shutdown was avoided and a continuing resolution to fund the government was passed. Florida Republican Rep Matt Gaetz filed a motion to vacate and for “reasons that I don’t have insight into, Kevin McCarthy decided that he was not going to wait and he was going to call that vote right away,” rather than using the allotted 48 hours to act on the motion.

That didn’t seem to go as planned, Ms Ocasio-Cortez added. It seems as though Republicans and Mr McCarthy were “under the impression that Democrats were going to elect a Republican speaker — somehow. Why he thought that? I do not know. Why he made that assumption? I’m not quite sure.”

She said Mr McCarthy seemed like he wanted Democrats to “bail him out” of this situation, despite not keeping promises that he has made. Of the 212 House Democrats, 208 backed the motion to remove.

“In governance, your word is your bond. You cannot break promises over and over again with people that you work with. It’s just not gonna happen, especially if you need to rely on those people to cut a deal in such a tight margin.”

She then rattled off a series of promises that the former House speaker allegedly broke: “When you vote to overturn election results. When you cut a deal with the president and Leader Schumer and Leader Jeffries to raise the debt limit and then you say, ‘never mind.’ When you say ‘I will not allow a sham and baseless inquiry to go forward’…and then you say ‘never mind.”

Ms Ocasio-Cortez then said succinctly: “Your word is your bond and when you show that your word means nothing, your bond means nothing.”

“You don’t end up in this situation without some sort of personal responsibility,” she added.

She said Mr McCarthy was engaged in “magical thinking about vote counts and about how this institution can remain together.”

She said that “actions have consequences. If we do not follow through on the natural consequences of reckless behaviour, then we enable that behaviour.” Ms Ocasio-Cortez continued, “A vote for Kevin McCarthy would have meant a continued vote for the enabling of the most extreme elements of the Republican party.”

Republicans are now in “their own form of disarray,” but “Republican leadership creates chaos,” Rep Ocasio-Cortez said.

After he was ousted earlier this week, Mr McCarthy said he will not run again for the post.