Kevin McCarthy has been toppled in a right-wing revolt – the first time ever that a US House of Representatives Speaker has lost a no-confidence vote.
The final tally was 216-210 to remove the congressman as leader of the Republican majority in the lower chamber of Congress.
Hardliners in his party voted against him after he struck a deal with Senate Democrats to fund government agencies.
There is no clear successor to oversee the House Republican majority. Congress has just over 40 days to agree on a deal to avoid another potential government shutdown. Florida Republican Matt Gaetz, a Trump ally, filed a rarely used procedural tool known as a motion to vacate on Monday night to oust Mr McCarthy.
At a private meeting of Republican politicians on Tuesday evening after losing his job, Mr McCarthy told colleagues he did not plan to run for Speaker again.
He later took aim at his political nemesis, Mr Gaetz, accusing him of attention-seeking. “You know it was personal,” Mr McCarthy told a news conference, “it had nothing to do with spending.”
He said fundraising emails sent by Mr Gaetz amid the infighting were “not becoming of a member of Congress”.
The hardliners who ousted him “are not conservatives”, Mr McCarthy added. He only became Speaker in January after a gruelling 15 rounds of voting in the chamber as Mr Gaetz and other right-wingers refused to support him.
To win over those hardliners Mr McCarthy agreed to make it possible for a single member to put forward a motion to oust him, which is exactly what Mr Gaetz ultimately did.
Mr McCarthy was supported by 210 Republicans but eight voted against him in Tuesday’s vote, joining all Democrat members. One vote against Mr McCarthy that surprised many came from a moderate Republican from South Carolina, Nancy Mace.
She said afterwards: “I am looking for a Speaker who will tell the truth to the American people, who will be honest and trustworthy with Congress, with both parties.”
Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries had said in a letter to colleagues that he would not provide the votes needed to rescue Mr McCarthy. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a left-wing Democrat from the north-western US state of Washington, said before the vote: “Let them wallow in their pigsty of incompetence.”
BBC
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