Chip Roy does NOT rule out taking Speaker's gavel from Kevin McCarthy over debt ... trends now
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A top conservative negotiator who helped persuade House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's critics to give him the gavel refused to rule out calling for the GOP leader's ouster himself, if McCarthy fails to live up to a key concession in the deal they struck.
Texas Rep. Chip Roy helped lead four grueling days of talks that eventually led to him and 19 other conservatives dropping their opposition to McCarthy's bid for Speaker.
In exchange McCarthy agreed to a host of concessions, including a vow not to bring a bill to the floor that would increase the debt ceiling without offsetting it with spending cuts elsewhere.
Another controversial measure McCarthy agreed to was lowering the threshold for a 'motion to vacate the chair,' which under the proposed rules would allow just one Republican lawmaker to call for a vote to take away the Speaker's gavel.
Roy was asked by CNN's State of the Union on Sunday whether he'd trigger the potential kill-switch on McCarthy's political power if the Speaker were to call a vote on a clean debt ceiling increase.
'I'm not going to play the what-if games on how we'll use the tools of the House to make sure we enforce the terms of the agreement,' Roy responded.
'But we will use the tools of the House to enforce the terms of the agreement.'
Texas Rep. Chip Roy was a top negotiators for conservatives who were against Speaker Kevin McCarthy's bid for the gavel
McCarthy narrowly won after 15 rounds of voting, the longest it's taken to elect a Speaker in modern political history
McCarthy narrowly won the Speakership after 15 rounds of voting last week. Tense scenes played out across the House floor across four days while McCarthy allies were pleading with holdouts to vote with the other 200-plus members of their conference.
Tensions reached a boiling point overnight on Saturday, when the top Armed Services
