Kevin McCarthy’s ouster from the House speakership Tuesday appears to have increased the risk that the U.S. government will shut down next month, as the far-right lawmakers who toppled him demand that the GOP extract impossibly large concessions from the White House and Democratic-controlled Senate.
House Republicans on Wednesday started the process of choosing their next leader, but whoever they choose is likely to face the same political constraints that led to McCarthy’s ouster. The former speaker was deposed in part over the fury that followed his decision on Saturday to extend government funding with Democratic votes. After the House did not pass several other Republican spending bills, McCarthy agreed to essentially take up a bipartisan Senate measure, jettisoning the far-right’s demands for hundreds of billions in budget cuts and a crackdown on immigration.
