A few hours before midnight on 1 October, Kevin McCarthy, a Republican congressman and then-House Speaker, appeared to pull off a major victory by brokering a bipartisan deal to avoid a costly government shutdown. "It's to the benefit of this country that we have a better Speaker of the House than Kevin McCarthy," Mr Gaetz said, as he celebrated Mr McCarthy's ouster. The manoeuvre not only devastated Mr McCarthy's political ambition, but disoriented Washington and plunged the House back into chaos.