The office of Speaker Of The House of the United States house of representatives is hereby declared vacant. The maga congress fires their own speaker. Who own our leadership, who all you want tonight, the painful end of Kevin Mccarthys speakership, the historic dysfunction in the peoples house, and the republican rage at the monster that they created. Hes either a fool or a liar. Have you spoken to President Trump about this . I have. Then, more history in a new york courtroom. Consider this a gag order on all parties with respect to posting or publicly speaking about any member of my staff. The disgraced expresident already found liable for decades of fraud, now sanctioned for attacking courtroom staff. All that, plus senator Elizabeth Warren and author Michael Lewis on his new book of The Rise And Fall of Sam Bankmanfried. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york, i am chris hayes. Tonight, for the very first time in the nations history, the Speaker Of The House has been fired, and the office has been left vacant. It is vacant right now. We have an Interim Speaker but no official speaker. And Kevin Mccarthy, after less than a year on the job, is out. Exactly nine months ago today, House Republicans held the first of 15 votes, remember that, to elevate california congressman Kevin Mccarthy to Speaker Of The House of representatives. Just a few hours ago, they voted to remove him from that position. You see, as part of a deal to secure his speakership on that 15th ballot, mccarthy made a deal with the most extreme members of the conference that would allow just one disgruntled representative to force a vote to fire him. And today, maga florida Congressman Matt Gaetz forced that vote, and seven of his colleagues went along with it. It is the first time that a speaker has been removed by a motion to vacate. The only other time that went to a vote was a quarter century ago, when congressman mark meadows tried to oust Speaker Boehner in 2015, a little foreshadowing. Now, mccarthy could have possibly been saved had House Democrats voted him to keep the job, but mccarthy spent the weekend bashing the very party that just helped to avert a Government Shutdown, and who would soon control his fate. I was not sure if it was going to pass. You want to know why . The democrats tried to do everything they can to not let it pass. Democrats were the one who voted for this in a larger number than republicans to keep the continuing resolution alive. Democratic leadership made the choice not to bail mccarthy out. Party leadership flipped votes against mccarthy, and the caucus remained even as some republicans called democrats, begging them to Support Mccarthy ahead of the vote. The House Republican conference has once again spun chaos out of nothing. And you are seeing all of these people in the run up of this, in the aftermath, House Republicans, rightwing media, railing against matt gaetz as a common enemy. What matt gaetz is doing, it does not appear to be a serious challenge. He did not offer himself up to be a speaker. You want to come out, you can kiss my butt. You put your thoughts on twitter, yeah, come out to my Office People dont understand why matt gaetz is making this move right now. What he stands to gain and broader politics and the activists that he works with. I think it is nihilistic. I dont know what he hopes to accomplish. Whoever it is to be speaker next, to try to vacate them to. Lets be clear here, because the Incentive Structure in this town is completely broken. We no longer value loyalty, integrity, confidence or collaboration. Instead, we have descended to a place where clicks, tv hits and the never ending quest for the most mediocre taste of celebrity drives decisions and encourages juvenile decisions that so beneath this esteemed body. Sure, find the lie. And one particular him using interaction, a nbc reporter asked a republican member of gatess team, quote, pulled out his phone and showed this gaetz fundraising plan. Matt gaetz is such an obvious charlatan. What he is doing is trying to elevate his own stature, advance to a run, by making him the center of this manufactured crisis. It is so profoundly almost comically cynical. Anyone with eyes can see it. Anyone can recognize it. First, he forced the u. S. To the brink of a Government Shutdown, which would require the democrats the bail out the house with a bipartisan vote. And now hes working with democratic voters to oust Mccarthy For Thesame Sin of a bipartisan vote. And the cynicism on the spy here, which is like the of our time, comes back. That cynicism is driving fellow republicans nuts, and it is working. They are totally right. Gaetz is a fraud, a con artist, purely forming a chaos, at his own stature, all while raising funds from his supporters. Here is the thing, here is the thing. Everything that is true about Matt Gaetzcan be said 1000 times over about donald trump, the guy they all answered to, who runs the republican party. To all the republicans who are frustrated with how all of this went down, you think matt gaetz was reckless when he tried to force a Government Shutdown . Donald trump was the one who told him to do it. Donald trump shut his own government as president. You think that gaetz did too much to sour mccarthys reputation with the faithful. Donald trump did nothing to help mccarthys job this week, at least not publicly. You think matt gaetz is motivated more by his petty personal feuds than a political vision or shared Governing Ethos . Donald trump is running for president explicitly on a platform of retaliation against his perceived enemies. Do you think gaetz is manipulating is base to squeeze some more small dollar donations from them . Donald trump is hoovering up hundreds of millions of dollars from his die hard supporters with dangerous lies and manipulation. Do you think that matt gaetz is a malignant narcissist who sows chaos for his own personal gain . Do you remember the Trump Presidency . I mean, it is just wild to watch them stop at their feet and rage against matt gaetz. Oh, matt gaetz is running so unreasonably. This is the stuff that those of us who oppose trump have been saying for years. And, sure, republicans talk tough when it is some shady congressman from florida. But when donald trump does the exact stuff, only worse, much worse and more dangerous, republicans defend him, make policies for him, simply say nothing. There are a lot of republicans willing to go on the record against gaetz in this instance. How many of them spoke out against trump when he essentially called for his own chairman of joint chiefs to be executed . And, again, this is not some kind of gotcha. It is the abdication of responsibility that is woven now into the very nature of the republican party. That is the party that they have. And they have the party that they have now, the party where matt gaetz can do this. They have the party. You built it. Republicans and rightwing media after spending decades cultivating the worst instincts inside their own Political Coalition simply because at each marginal moment, it was the path of least resistance and it got them power for one more day. Just a series of cynical short term decisions about what to do, and every time they did one of those little decisions. I would not speak now, go along with this, every time they did that, these tactical decisions to enable that cowardice and to feed that monstrous Appetite For Destruction and punishment, cruelty, each time they did that, they dug a little deeper down into the Moral Abscess Into which they have fallen. And now, here they are. Look around, they have dug to the bottom of the hole. They cant climb back out, stuck there with matt gaetz, the rest of the extreme maga caucus. So to the House Republican congress, you have no one to blame but yourselves. You dug the hole. The problem is, you drag the whole country down with you. There is no one left to pull you back out. Congressman adam schiff is a democrat of california. Earlier this year, he was kicked off the committee by mccarthy. He is also now candidate for california, and he joins me now. What was it like when he saw that house, and what do you think . You know, it was very interesting because while our members were glad to see him go, there was really no jubilation. It was very somber. We all recognized that this was something that has never happened before in history. To see that chair literally vacant was very striking. All that being said, it was the right decision. Kevin mccarthy was incapable of governing. The republicans dont trust him, the democrats dont trust him. He reneged on his promises, turned on his commitment to the president on the shutdown and debt ceiling deal. He supported the overturning of an election, it was hard for democrats to find anything redeemable in the mccarthy speakership. But more importantly, he was not able to govern. We desperately need to address a whole serious list of things, homelessness, houselessness, security, fentanyl and inflation, and we could not do that, because mccarthy could not govern effectively. It was a horrible lost opportunity the last ten months. I hope now they will pick someone that is at least trustworthy, that has some governing ability so that we can get back to focusing on americans. Okay, okay, do you hear what you just said, the last sentence . Where is that going to come from . I am just going to get the argument on the other side. I dont know what the right thing is. I am not a conservative, right . The House Democratic caucus faced a choice no one has ever faced before. So what do you do here . I guess the argument you could make here is that you say, you guys have to work this out yourself, youre the majority. We will not vote affirmatively against a motion to vacate. Because he is not our guy. We will not help out gaetz. You guys figure it out because whatever comes after him will likely be worse. I guess that is the question. Isnt the rule of the trajectory republican politics that what comes next is always worse . Well, that was certainly the rue with donald trump that every act succeeding the last by trump was worse than the one before, but honestly, i am not sure how much worse we can get than the chaos we have on the house floor over the last nine or ten months. We just emerged from ome crisis to another, completely manmade, that is. We lurched up to a default on our debt. We lurched up to a shutdown. We did not attend to the real problems facing the country. Look, he proved incapable of governing. There are many conservative leaders, people like liz cheney and adam kinzinger, who have principal, and we can fight over policy, because we have profound policy differences, but at least you can work with them in the sense that their word is worth something. I think that was true of boehner, true of ryan, but it is not true of mccarthy. If you have someone with a basic level of trust, its hard to do the peoples work. That is interesting. I heard from gaetz to nancy mace to you and others about this point, that you literally cannot trust him. He would give his word on something, and it did not count for something. Independent of ideology, that matters. There was a moment today, they are losing their minds. They are furious in the House Republican caucus. We would call another circumstances, a runoff action 200 plus majority, its a rump fashion that this. This is patrick mchenry, now speaker pro tem, Venting His Obvious Rage as he gaveled close tonight. I want to play this, because its a remarkably revealing moment. Take a watch. Accordingly pursuant to clause 12 a of rule one, the chair declares the House Recess Subject to the call of the chair. The house is now in recess for a week, so now what happens . Well, i think one of two things. Either, they leave mckendry there. There is no time limit on how long a pro tem can serve. Or they get someone else they can get the votes for. Look, there has to be someone in their conference who has not annoyed this faction or that can at least provide some modicum of stability, but, look, chris, you are absolutely right. This is a problem entirely of their making. They created this maga monster, this extreme maga base that has completely gotten out of control. Now, they are kind of running scared of it. They embrace trump as am agent, and what they will quarrel with matt gaetz and now. You are absolutely right about that. There is no greater chaos agent than donald trump. It is more than amusing and critical to see them attack matt gaetz for being a chaos agent. They elected a chaos agent. They still owe their fealty to the greatest chaos agent that this country has seen, donald trump. They made this monster. They are trying to deal with it now. For the country sake, they need to somehow get their house of the half an order, pick someone who can govern who can be trusted so that we can move things forward, because there is no reason why the country cannot have another great leadership, but for the broken governance, and right now its broken because republicans cant even get along with each other. Congressman adam shift of california, thank you very much, appreciate it. Thank you. David jolly is a former republican congressman from the state of florida. He has since left the party, and he joins me now. David, you were there from earlier iterations of the same dynamic. Sort of different challenges against leadership. Remember, meadows, boehner, the base, a lot of folks hated boehner, boehner retired rather than keep going. Paul ryan, something, got out of the job. What is your reaction today . I like that framing, chris. In many ways, republicans have always had some internal squabbles as have democrats. You can go back to the launch of the tea party and the Real Movement of moving from Less Government to no government to no under trump, the government is the enemy. You saw this faction begin to emerge. Honestly, even the mainstream republicans tried to curry favor with that faction so that they would not get tossed out. In many ways, the fact the fight that you saw today was a fight that all republicans agreed to. Have they knew nobody could when it, nobody would accept responsibility for it. I think the one thing that is probably most disappointing about mccarthys comments, even tonight after saying that he would not remain speaker, is that he is still blaming democrats. He is now blaming the caucus that he enabled, he is still blaming the rules that he agreed to. To hes still blaming the agreement that he reached in january, because even Kevin Mccarthy himself cannot accept responsibility for his own culpability. This is some of the most titanic as fighting that i have ever seen. A bunch of conservative take mongers hawking their wares like why this is the democrats fault . Here is mccarthy, take a look. You all know matt gaetz. You know it was personal. It had nothing to do about spending. It had nothing to do about everything he accused was something that he was doing. It was about was getting attention from you. We are reading email fundraisers from him as he is doing it, join in quickly. That is not governing. That is not becoming of a member of congress. And regardless of what you think, i have seen the texts, it was all about his ethics. You need 218. Unfortunately, 4 of our caucus, including all the democrats, can dictate who that you can be the republican Speaker Of The House. I dont think that rule is good for the institution, and apparently, i am the only one. I believe i can continue to fight in a different manner. I will not run for speaker again. I will have the Conference PickSomebody Else so, he literally said, i dont think that role is good for the institution. Bro, you negotiated that rule. You negotiated the rules package so you can be speaker. What are you talking about . And this is such classic mccarthy. This is not all about matt gaetz. That is one person. It takes five republicans to kick him out, and eight of them voted against him. If it is just about matt gaetz, Kevin Mccarthy would have survived today, and he would be running for speaker again, even if he lost todays vote. This is because the arsonist caucus has become so empowered by Kevin Mccarthy himself, that he now could not contain it. This was an inevitability. We knew that this day was coming since january. Kevin mccarthy just tried to pretend in his own vanities and selfconfidence that it would not, but we knew it would, and Kevin Mccarthy would suffer the consequence. We dsicussed in january and asked, does mccarthy stay in office . That is a real question for a speaker now leaving the high post in the chamber. He will simply be a Rank And File colleague of matt gaetz, who knows what he does next . There is a lot of money for him to go, work in town, if he wants to. I would suspect that is calling him. The one thing he may do, chris, he still controls the House RepublicanFundraising Apparatus better than anybody. Hes really good at it. He may run out the te