Kevin McCarthy rejected claims by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) that he didn’t keep his promises to her as speaker. 

McCarthy (R-Calif.) revealed that he called Mace’s chief of staff after learning that the congresswoman “was on ‘The View’ saying I didn't keep my word.” 

“So, I call her chief of staff … I said, ‘Can you please tell me, I don't understand? Where have I not kept my word?’” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday after his historic removal. “Chief of staff said, ‘You have kept your word 100%.’”

Mace appeared on "The View” Monday and said that she empathized with Rep. Matt Gaetz’s effort to oust McCarthy from the speakership.

“My frustration is a little bit different, but I was made promises by the speaker that have not been kept. I’ve been a strong fighter for women’s rights since overturning Roe v. Wade — actually, since before then — I’ve negotiated my own deals, my own promises, on women’s issues, on gun violence, on balancing the budget. None of those promises have been kept,” she alleged. 

“I bite my lip,” McCarthy said. “I let people say things that are not true. But it's not right. It is not right. Her chief of staff told all of us we have kept every single one of our words. And he said he's told her that, too.” 

McCarthy added that he would give Mace’s chief of staff – Dan Hanlon – a job if she fires him.

Kevin McCarthy took the gloves off with the Republicans renegades who sank his speakership.

"They voted against one of the greatest cuts in history ... They voted against border security," McCarthy chided during a brief speech. "They don't get to see and they're conservative because they're angry, and they're chaotic."

"They're not conservatives, and they don't get to call themselves conservatives."

Many of those rebels, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) have sought to undercut McCarthy's conservative bona fides, accusing him of being soft on government spending.

Kevin McCarthy indicated that he has no regrets in his first remarks since he became the first House speaker in US history to be ousted from the position. 

“I don't regret standing up for choosing governance over grievance,” the California Republican said Tuesday night. “It is my responsibility. It is my job. I do not regret negotiating. Our government is designed to find compromise.”

“I don't regret my efforts to build coalitions and find solutions. I was raised to solve problems, not create them,” he added. 

"My goals have not changed. My ability to fight is just in a different form."

The former speaker revealed that he will not run for the speakership again and may consider resigning from Congress altogether. 

Kevin McCarthy expressed fear that the institution of Congress “fell today” and he laid blame on Democrats and eight House Republicans after the historic vote to remove him as speaker. 

“I think today was a political decision by the Democrats,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday.

“And I think the things they have done in the past hurt the institution – when they just started removing people from the committee, when they just started doing the other things – and my fear is the institution fell today because you can't do the job if eight people, you have 94% of, or 96% of, your entire conference, but eight people can partner with the whole other side.” 

“How do you govern? And for them to make a motion on me because I made a decision for the country that they agreed with but they choose to do the other, that becomes a problem,” he added.

Kevin McCarthy pulled no punches when asked about Matt Gaetz, the mastermind of his historic removal as speaker of the House of Representatives Tuesday.

"You all know Matt Gaetz," he said in his first remarks following his ouster. "You know it was personal. It had nothing to do with spending."

The California Republican even called his Florida counterpart's actions as "not becoming of a member of Congress."

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) indicated Tuesday that he will nominate former President Donald Trump to be the next House speaker. 

“Kevin McCarthy will NOT be running again as Speaker. I nominate Donald J. Trump for Speaker of the House,” Nehls tweeted. 

House members have been advised that a vote for a new speaker will not take place until next week. Individuals not serving in Congress, such as Trump, are eligible to receive votes.

Trump, 77, received one vote for the speakership back in January on the seventh, eighth and eleventh ballots, despite only being nominated on the eleventh by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida). 

McCarthy (R-Calif.) was eventually elected speaker on the 15th ballot in January after five days of voting, only to be ousted 10 months later in a historic first for the House of Representatives.

The longstanding feud between Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) goes back much farther than Tuesday’s historic vote to unseat McCarthy as House speaker.

Gaetz has long been McCarthy’s loudest opponent — dramatically voting “present” rather than backing the California Republican’s bid for the gavel in January.

McCarthy has repeatedly claimed Gaetz has borne him a grudge for refusing his demand that McCarthy intervene in an ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation.

“He’s blaming me for an ethics complaint against him that happened in the last Congress. I have nothing to do with it,” McCarthy told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” just hours before he was voted out.

Gaetz, who is rumored to be eyeing a run for Florida governor in 2026, is being eyed by the ethics panel over allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and campaign finance violations as well as taking bribes.

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After taking down one House speaker, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is panning the new acting one.

Gaetz bashed Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC) for purportedly dismissing the lower chamber until next Tuesday.

"I think that's burning a lot of time," Gaetz fumed to CNN. "It was very disappointing. I think we should stay, we should work. We should have a speaker election this week. I think we could easily come together as a conference to do that."

Multiple Republican lawmakers claimed that Kevin McCarthy is planning to bow out of consideration to be the next speaker.

There have also been murmurs of a candidate forum for his successor.

Kevin McCarthy’s 269-day tenure as House speaker is the shortest in nearly 150 years, congressional records show. 

McCarthy served as House speaker from Jan. 7, 2023, until Tuesday, when he was ousted by eight Republicans and 208 Democrats that voted in favor of Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. 

The only speaker’s that have served fewer days than McCarthy are Indiana Democratic Rep. Michael C. Kerr – who died in office after 258 days with the gavel in 1876 – and New York Republican Theodore Pomeroy – who served one day after his 1869 election. 

Pomeroy was elected speaker to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Speaker Schuyler Colfax (R-Ind.), who stepped down to become Ulysses S. Grant's vice president. 

The House last voted on a motion to remove a speaker in 1910, when an attempt was made to oust former Speaker Joe Cannon (R-Ill.)

The resolution, however, did not succeed.

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn blasted his counterparts in the House for toppling the speaker.

"A handful House members just want to blow up the institution and themselves in the process. Sad," Cornyn posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Cornyn was once the No. 2 Senate Republican and his remarks illustrate some the frustrations between the GOP in the upper chamber and their peers in the House.

Self-described "pragmatic" Democrat Rep. Jim Himes from Connecticut said Democrats have been "more than willing to bail McCarthy and the Republicans out of disaster."

Himes contended that they did so during the debt ceiling showdown and the recent push to avoid a government shutdown.

Himes statement: pic.twitter.com/2PD86T88j8

— Lisa Hagen (@LA_Hagen) October 3, 2023

But when it came to McCarthy's speakership, the top Republican had hemorrhaged good will with Democrats.

"He went after us — brutally blamed us for this and that. In the caucus this morning, people were telling the story, and it's still an open wound," Himes told CNN.

McCarthy blamed Democrats for taking the US to the brink of a government shutdown over the weekend.

Another grievance was McCarthy's mending fences with former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

"I would love to reach out and get us out of this chaos. But for that to happen, you know, we need to get some pretty substantial things in return," he added.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tx.) tore into the eight Republican renegades who took down the speaker, arguing that they set a trap for him.

"They voted against the hyper-conservative stopgap bill that had our border security bill, that had 30% cuts to non defense discretionary spending. It was like a conservative wish list," Crenshaw said on Newsmax.

"They made sure that tanked just so you had to pass a clean CR in order to keep the government open, and then they could punish him for it," he added. "There's a game being played here."

Crenshaw further suspected that it's "personal" and the GOP defectors pursued a vendetta against Kevin McCarthy.