#GOP Rep. Byron Donalds says McCarthy ‘in trouble’ 

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said Sunday he thinks House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is “in trouble” after Congress averted a government shutdown by approving a “clean” stopgap measure brough to the House floor in a suprise move by the Speaker.

The measure won more support from Democrats in the House than Republicans, but McCarthy said it was a gamble that was worth it to avoid a shutdown. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has vowed to bring a motion to the floor this week that would seek to unseat McCarthy as Speaker in response.

“I think he [McCarthy] is in trouble,” Donalds told “Fox News Sunday” anchor Shannon Bream. “Part of that is because there has to be some level of strong leadership in our chamber. I’m just going to be totally blunt, there are a lot of trust issues in my chamber right now, where people feel on both sides of our conference that everybody is not going to hold hands and continue to do this work together.”

Pointing to the House’s largely bipartisan 335-91 vote on the deal, Donalds stressed it took more Democratic votes and resembled the debt deal vote earlier this year, where Republicans called McCarthy’s compromise with the White House a capitulation to President Biden.

The bipartisan measure on Saturday came after McCarthy’s failed attempts to get a handful of hardline conservatives to support a GOP-only stopgap bill. This forced the Speaker to bring a “clean” bill to the floor to prevent a shutdown.

The measure did not include conservatives’ demands for spending cuts or border policy changes. It also didn’t include aid for Ukraine.

When asked if he would vote against the Speaker in a motion to vacate, Donalds said, “Frankly, I don’t know right now.”

“I’ve got to really think about that, because there’s a lot of stuff going on in that building that’s behind us. What Democrats do, I can’t even speak to it right. now,” Donalds said.