Pelosi once supported bailing out a GOP House speaker from hard-right efforts to oust him: 'We would protect the institution'
- Kevin McCarthy was ousted last week in part because every Democrat voted to do so.
- Republicans have since argued that Democrats are complicit in creating "chaos" in the House.
When Kevin McCarthy was kicked out of the speakership last week, many Republicans immediately trained their ire on Democrats.
After all, they had chosen to support the motion to vacate offered by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, and the effort would not have been successful without their involvement. House Republicans' campaign arm notably dubbed the Democrats the "Chaos Caucus" in a recent post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Democrats have argued that they had no obligation to help McCarthy out.
McCarthy had done plenty to anger Democrats, including launching an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden without holding a vote on it, downplaying the Capitol riot and defying a subpoena from the January 6 committee, and even claiming just days before the vote that Democrats tried to shut the government down.
But things weren't always this way.
Back in 2015, then-Republican House Speaker John Boehner faced down a similar motion-to-vacate threat from rabble-rousing conservatives. He ultimately resigned in September of that year without the vote ever being called.
Months later, Nancy Pelosi — then the House Minority Leader — told a group of reporters that she and Democrats were ready to take steps to protect Boehner from a right-wing mutiny.
That plan wouldn't have required Democrats to vote for Boehner. Rather, some of them would simply be absent on the day of the vote, allowing Boehner to potentially win with just a plurality of support.
"We would protect the institution," she told reporters, according to the Daily Beast. "We would not let a Speaker be overthrown."
Of course, things have changed. For one, Pelosi is no longer in party leadership, and she herself missed the vote to oust McCarthy last week after flying back to California to attend the funeral of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Additionally, cross-aisle relationships in Congress have only deteriorated over the last eight years, owing in part to the ascent of Donald Trump and January 6.
Still, the Pelosi pledge is notable if only because it lends credibility to an argument made by McCarthy in a press conference after his ouster on Tuesday. He said at the time that Pelosi had assured him that she would back him up in the event that a Republican called a motion to vacate on him.
"I'll always back you up. I made the same offer to Boehner, and same thing to [former Speaker Paul Ryan] because I believe in the institution," McCarthy recounted Pelosi saying.
But Pelosi herself argued after McCarthy's ouster that this time was different, saying McCarthy didn't respect the institution of the House of Representatives.
"The integrity of the institution is something that's very important to me," she told Fox 11 Los Angeles. "But if you don't respect the institution, then don't expect us to bail you out."