Rep. Kevin McCarthy is no longer Speaker of the House, and those who delivered the knock-out blow are taking their victory laps.
One especially awkward scene played out on Wednesday when Steve Bannon invited Rep. Nancy Mace and Rep. Matt Gaetz to appear on his show. It would be hard to find two more polar opposite Republican congressional members, but things got even weirder when Bannon noted that Mace voted to send him to federal prison.
You have to love her response that she's a "constitutionalist" when Bannon presses her. I'm not sure what the U.S. Constitution has to do with voting to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress given that's a judgment call, but Mace was entitled to her vote.
Regardless, it does show how incredibly weird the current dynamic is within the GOP. At the end of the day, Mace is a pro-abortion politician who has long pitted herself against the wing of the party that Matt Gaetz inhabits. Now, she's on War Room allied with Bannon, whom she previously recommended be charged with a crime. Politics certainly makes strange bedfellows.
In the clip, Gaetz goes on to say that Mace joined his fight because she's a "fiscal hawk." That's not the reported reason she was so upset with McCarthy, though. Rather, if you look at her tweet storm following her vote for the motion the vacate, she mentioned a broken promise over "women's issues," and there have been rumblings about her discontent in that area for months.
She has been trying to make a pro-abortion push within the GOP, claiming that compromises must be made on the issue to win elections. In fact, she joined with Democrats recently in calling for the Biden administration to ignore a judge's order regarding an abortion pill. It seems fairly certain that was the issue that pushed her into opposing McCarthy, not any sudden care for spending levels.
With all that said, I wouldn't get too used to this freshly formed alliance. It served its purpose of getting rid of McCarthy, but when it comes to voting for a replacement, I'd suspect Mace and Gaetz will be on opposite sides. They have completely different interests, and those interests will end up butting heads again soon enough.