Three years after enduring 15 rounds of voting to win the Speaker's gavel, and less than a year after losing it, Kevin McCarthy is talking. The former Speaker sat down with the Daily Mail to describe, in blunt terms, the backroom deal-making, personal feuds, and political leverage that shaped his brief tenure as the 55th Speaker of the House, and to lay out what he's been doing since.
What emerges is a portrait of a man still deeply wired into Republican politics, still raising money, still advising, and still settling scores, particularly with the Florida congressman who engineered his historic ouster.
McCarthy's most vivid recollection involves not Matt Gaetz but Congressman Andy Harris, who McCarthy said broke down during the grueling January 2023 Speaker fight. The California Republican did not mince words about what he witnessed inside the room.
"I still remember Congressman Andy Harris literally crying inside the room because he wanted to leverage his vote that I would give him a subcommittee chairmanship on health."
McCarthy said he refused the demand flat out, telling Harris he had already made his position clear a month earlier: "I told you a month ago, when you asked, I would never do that." The anecdote captures the kind of transactional pressure that defined the Speaker battle, and the kind of horse-trading that most Americans never see.
But the central figure in McCarthy's downfall was always Matt Gaetz. McCarthy connected Gaetz's decision to force a vote on his removal directly to the House Ethics Committee investigation that had dogged the Florida Republican for months. As McCarthy put it: "He did the motion to vacate the day he responded to the Ethics Committee."
That timeline matters. The New York Post reported that McCarthy had publicly claimed Gaetz was angry because McCarthy refused to intervene in the Ethics Committee probe. McCarthy told reporters at the time: "He wants me to try to wipe that away... I'm not going to do that. That's illegal." Gaetz, for his part, accused McCarthy of "gaslighting the Ethics Committee" and framed the ouster as a fight over spending and leadership.
The procedural weapon Gaetz used, the motion to vacate the chair, was one McCarthy himself had agreed to during the January Speaker fight. Under a rules change McCarthy accepted to secure the gavel, any single member could force a vote to remove the Speaker. It was a concession born of desperation, and it came back to end his tenure.
On October 3, 2023, Gaetz made good on his threat. As the Washington Free Beacon reported, the motion came after McCarthy relied on Democratic votes to pass a temporary funding extension and avoid a government shutdown, a move that infuriated hardline conservatives. The stopgap bill passed 335 to 91, with Gaetz and other GOP hardliners in opposition.
The result was swift and unprecedented. The Associated Press reported that McCarthy was removed in a 216, 210 vote, the first successful ouster of a sitting Speaker in American history. McCarthy told reporters afterward: "I may have lost this vote today, but as I walk out of this chamber I feel fortunate to have served."
He said he would not run for the post again. The House was left frozen, unable to act until Republicans elected new leadership.
The Gaetz saga did not end with McCarthy's removal. A years-long Department of Justice investigation into sex-trafficking allegations concluded in 2023 without any charges being filed against Gaetz. He has consistently and vehemently denied all accusations, calling them a "smear campaign" and part of an organized extortion plot.
In late 2024, President Trump tapped Gaetz to serve as U.S. Attorney General. The nomination collapsed just days later when mounting opposition in the Senate made confirmation impossible. Gaetz resigned from Congress and withdrew.
McCarthy did not hide his satisfaction. "I think they saved America a great deal by Gaetz not being able to get anywhere," he said, referring to the senators who refused to play ball.
Gaetz fired back. "Innocence makes prosecution very challenging," he said. "Kevin obsesses about me. It is pathetic."
The exchange captures a feud that has outlasted both men's time in Congress, and shows no sign of cooling. Whatever the merits of each side's argument, the fact remains that a personal grudge between two Republicans cost the party its Speaker, paralyzed the House, and consumed months of a razor-thin 24-month majority.
That kind of internal dysfunction has consequences far beyond Capitol Hill. The same intra-party fractures that have divided House Republicans on immigration and other priorities trace back, in part, to the leadership vacuum McCarthy's ouster created.
McCarthy, for his part, has not retreated. He told the Daily Mail he serves on the boards of the CIA and the LA Olympics, teaches at USC and Harvard, and launched two ventures: the ALFA Institute, focused on technology and defense, and Watchtower, a public affairs firm.
He remains a frequent presence on television, appearing several times a week on Fox News, CBS, and ABC. And he is still raising money, $31 million last cycle for Republican candidates, he said.
He recently dropped $100,000 into Virginia in an effort to stop Democrats from redrawing political maps, though that effort was unsuccessful. The investment signals that McCarthy sees his role as a behind-the-scenes party builder, even without a title. His fundraising muscle is the kind of asset that keeps a former Speaker relevant, and House Republicans have been posting record hauls as the party gears up for the midterms.
McCarthy said he is working behind the scenes ahead of those midterms and that President Trump called him just two nights before the interview. "He just called me night before last," McCarthy said, a detail that suggests he remains in the former and current president's orbit.
Asked about his successor, current Speaker Mike Johnson, McCarthy was diplomatic but measured. He described Johnson as "working hard" but also noted that House Republicans "kept all their leadership" after the last cycle, a pointed observation, given that McCarthy believes the party's tradition calls for a reset after losing the majority.
"If you're the speaker historically in the house as Republicans, if you lose the majority, we do something new and go with new leadership."
The comment stops short of calling for Johnson's removal. But it plants a flag. McCarthy clearly believes the GOP needs to think about what comes next, and he has a list of names ready. He described a "very big bench" of Republicans prepared to handle "the job from all aspects," naming Jim Jordan, Tom Emmer, August Pfluger, French Hill, Bruce Westerman, and Jason Smith.
That kind of bench talk is not idle chatter from a man who raised $31 million and still takes calls from the president. It is a signal to the party about where McCarthy thinks the leadership pipeline should flow. And the broader question of how Senate and House Republicans manage their internal divisions will shape whether that bench ever gets its chance.
Looking further ahead, McCarthy offered a clear pick for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination: "JD Vance has the best chance to do it, if that's what he wants to do." He also said he would be "extremely proud" to see Marco Rubio as president one day.
And McCarthy has not entirely closed the door on his own future in elected office. "I'm still young enough," he said, a line that could mean anything from a comeback bid to a wink at his own restlessness. He started in politics as a 20-year-old from Bakersfield who won $5,000 on a lottery ticket and used it to start a small business. The man who clawed through 15 rounds to become Speaker is not the type to sit still.
McCarthy's relationship with President Trump and the broader House Republican conference remains a live wire in Washington. Whether he returns to elected office or continues operating from the outside, his willingness to name names and settle accounts publicly makes him a factor the party cannot ignore.
McCarthy's interview is more than a settling of old scores. It is a reminder that the Republican majority in the House has been fragile, and that personal vendettas, procedural gamesmanship, and the willingness of a handful of members to blow up their own leadership have real costs. The 24-month majority McCarthy helped build was consumed, in part, by the very chaos that brought him down.
The question now is whether House Republicans can channel their institutional energy into accountability and results, or whether the next leadership fight will look just like the last one.
Washington has no shortage of ambition. What it lacks, as McCarthy's story makes painfully clear, is the discipline to keep it pointed in the right direction.
