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McCarthy’s Impeachment Theater

The speaker is pinned between pro-impeachment hardliners who want to shut down the government, vulnerable moderates whose fate will determine control of Congress, and maybe the outcome of the 2024 election, too.

Kevin McCarthy faces migraine-inducing dilemmas from the likes of M.T.G. and Matt Gaetz, who’ve threatened to kick rocks in the gears if an impeachment inquiry doesn’t materialize.
Kevin McCarthy faces migraine-inducing dilemmas from the likes of M.T.G. and Matt Gaetz, who’ve threatened to kick rocks in the gears if an impeachment inquiry doesn’t materialize. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Tina Nguyen
September 8, 2023

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House Republicans, shaking off their post-recess stupor, are returning to Washington just in time for a familiar political crisis. Once again, hardline members of the G.O.P. caucus are threatening a government shutdown on September 30 if they don’t get their way—and once again they’ve placed a procedural gun to the head of Speaker Kevin McCarthy. “In order to appease them, Kevin’s gonna have to give them something,” a Republican source familiar with the state of negotiations told me, sounding understandably exasperated.