‘I always have a plan. That doesn’t mean it happens,’ House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said early Thursday afternoon. ‘I had a plan for this week. It didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned.’

McCarthy’s ‘plan’ was for the House to approve a defense spending bill stocked with all sorts of conservative priorities. The measure included the elimination of ‘woke’ policies in the military focused on ‘inclusion’ and ‘diversity.’ 

The bill also torpedoed a Pentagon decision to permit service members seeking abortions to travel across state lines. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is holding up the promotions of about 300 senior officers across all branches in protest. 

But that wasn’t enough for House Republicans. McCarthy lacked the votes to even put the defense bill on the floor.

MASK CONFUSION ENTERS CONGRESS AGAIN AS COVID-19 CASES TICK UP

‘I don’t have one complaint by any member about what’s wrong with this bill,’ McCarthy groused.

It’s always about the math on Capitol Hill. McCarthy’s margin is even tighter now thanks to the resignation of former Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah. There are just enough arch-conservatives to vote no who won’t support much of anything. That’s despite McCarthy stripping spending on various appropriations bills well below the level agreed to in the debt ceiling accord forged with President Biden.

McCarthy torched his opponents in a closed-door House Republican Conference meeting Thursday. The speaker is exasperated by right-wing intransigence to passing even GOP bills that articulate core conservative priorities. That’s to say nothing of intimations from right-wing members who are threatening to oust McCarthy from the speaker’s position, disappointed in his stewardship.

McCarthy brought the heat in the private meeting, dropping F-bombs on fellow Republicans he believes were obstinate.

‘I showed frustration in here because I am frustrated with the committee or frustrated with some people in the conference,’ McCarthy said afterward. ‘I don’t walk away from a battle.’

McCarthy promised that if it will take ‘a fight, I’ll have a fight.’

The speaker’s loyalists closed ranks around the California Republican.

‘He’s irritated,’ said Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., when asked about McCarthy’s salty language.

‘The speaker said, ‘Look, if you want to make a motion to vacate the chair, bring it on,’’ added Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Let’s go back to the math.

MCCARTHY TO GREEN LIGHT BIDEN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY THIS WEEK

It’s doubtful that anyone would have votes to dethrone McCarthy at this stage. And while few say it out loud, many believed McCarthy talking impeachment all summer long would buy him political capital with detractors. 

Even some moderate Republicans representing battleground districts like Bacon and Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, embraced McCarthy’s impeachment gambit of President Biden.

‘I think we should have impeached his ass a long time ago,’ said Gonzales, miffed about how the president handled the border.

But McCarthy faces a triangle of trouble.

The impeachment inquiry begins as McCarthy attempts to avert a government shutdown and could face a no-confidence vote from rank-and-file members.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., characterized it as a ‘three-ring circus.’

‘They can’t even bring the defense appropriations bill to the floor because they’ve totally lost control of the floor to the extremists who are running the House,’ said Jeffries.

The New York Democrat seemingly sympathized with McCarthy about his conundrums.

‘He’s not wrong in terms of the schizophrenic nature of some of the demands that have been made by House Republicans,’ said Jeffries.

McCarthy’s angered right-wingers because the House must likely approve an interim spending bill that simply renews all old funding on a temporary basis to avoid a shutdown. McCarthy said this week the stopgap measure could last for a month or two. 

What McCarthy didn’t say was that he probably needs to lean on Democrats to provide the votes to avoid a shutdown. The combination of failing to trim spending immediately and relying on more Democratic votes — a la what happened in May to approve the debt ceiling accord — is a toxic political cocktail for the speaker. It doesn’t matter what he does on impeachment.

‘If it takes too long get a vote for impeachment, I’m forcing a vote on impeachment,’ vowed Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.

It was Boebert who tried to deposit a snap resolution on the floor in June to impeach President Biden on the spot. This was all without committee hearings or any other vetting. The speaker intervened, euthanizing Boebert’s resolution. It’s unclear if McCarthy wishes he could rapidly say ‘Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice’ to make antagonists like Boebert disappear. 

Some conservatives accused McCarthy of pivoting to impeachment because of struggles to prevent a shutdown and slash spending.

‘He likes talking impeachment because it is a way to divert from the very failure to align to the commitment that was made in January,’ said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

Gaetz nearly blocked McCarthy from becoming speaker in January.

Some conservatives vow they will abandon McCarthy if he attempts to just re-up the old funding without immediate cuts. 

‘Speaker McCarthy is not living up to the promises that he made in order to secure that gavel,’ said Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont.

It’s notable that Gaetz, Boebert and Rosendale — along with representatives Bob Good, R-Va., Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and Eli Crane, R-Ariz., all voted ‘present’ and never supported McCarthy on the 15th and final ballot for speaker in January.

All it takes is one member to demand the House conduct a vote to ‘vacate the chair’ and there’s a potential challenge to McCarthy’s speakership. The House has voted to elect a new speaker before when a speaker died or resigned in the middle of the Congress. 

Such was the case in 2015 when former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced his retirement. Thus, a successful vote to ‘vacate the chair’ would trigger an unprecedented mid-Congress vote for speaker on the floor. 

Ironically, some Democrats could bail out McCarthy if it comes to that. 

‘I think the motion to vacate the chair should be opposed,’ said Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va. ‘We’d rather have the speaker we know than the speaker we don’t know.’

But the top House Democrat said McCarthy could be on his own.

‘They’re going to have to work out their own, internal poisonous, partisan, political dynamics,’ Jeffries said of House Republicans.

Fox is told that House leaders don’t expect any motion to vacate the chair until after the House votes on a still-hypothetical interim spending bill that doesn’t align with conservative demands. So, for now, McCarthy is trying to spray foam on the smoldering spending embers. 

‘Nobody wins in a government shutdown,’ said McCarthy. 

That is McCarthy’s plan.

But as the speaker conceded, his plan doesn’t always work out.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a scathing letter directed towards the White House after he was acquitted of state impeachment charges Saturday.

Paxton, a Republican, was accused of corruption, bribery and unfitness for office by a bipartisan group of Texas state senators. All 12 Democrats in the jury voted for his impeachment, along with two Republicans: Sens. Robert Nichols and Kelly Hancock.

The attorney general was accused of misusing his political power to hire Nate Paul, a real state developer who employed Paxton’s alleged mistress Laura Olson. Paul was indicted in June for allegedly making false statements to banks.

The jury needed 21 votes to confirm the impeachment, but a two-thirds majority was not reached. The vote finished just before 1 p.m. Saturday.

‘The sham impeachment coordinated by the Biden Administration with liberal House Speaker Dade Phelan and his kangaroo court has cost taxpayers millions of dollars, disrupted the work of the Office of Attorney General and left a dark and permanent stain on the Texas House,’ Paxton’s letter read.

‘The weaponization of the impeachment process to settle political differences is not only wrong, it is immoral and corrupt,’ the embattled attorney general added.

Paxton then accused the White House of promoting ‘lawless policies’ and promised that President Biden will be ‘held accountable.’

‘Finally, I can promise the Biden Administration the following: buckle up because your lawless policies will not go unchallenged,’ the statement read. ‘We will not allow you to shred the constitution and infringe on the rights of Texans. You will be held accountable.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for a statement, but has not heard back.

Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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CONCORD, N.H. – Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire is pledging that his state ‘will not back down’ to the Democratic National Committee.

The popular Republican governor taking to social media after the DNC once again kicked the can down the road in its fight with the crucial early voting state of New Hampshire over an effort to dramatically refigure the party’s 2024 presidential nominating calendar.

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee on Thursday voted to grant New Hampshire — which for a century has held the first primary in the race for the White House — a third extension to give the state more time to come into compliance with the national party committee’s new schedule, which moves South Carolina to the top of the nominating order.

The move by the panel came one day after New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan announced that his state’s presidential primary filing period would start on Oct. 11, leading to a contest that will likely be held in late January — ahead of South Carolina — and putting the Granite State on a collision course with the DNC.

The extension unanimously granted by the DNC panel on Thursday would last until Oct. 14.

‘We committed at the outset of this process to allow for every opportunity for states to honor the opportunity of hosting their nominating contests within the early window. We want to recommit to that principle and continue to work with the New Hampshire Democratic Party towards that goal,’ Rules and Bylaws Committee co-chair James Roosevelt said.

However, New Hampshire is extremely likely to eventually be found in non-compliance and penalized, with the state all but certain to hold an unsanctioned primary that would probably keep President Biden from putting his name on the ballot.

Sununu, responding to the news in a social media post, reiterated that ‘New Hampshire will not comply with the arbitrary demands and deadlines coming from @JoeBiden and the @DNC. We will not back down. New Hampshire will be going first whether Joe Biden likes it or not.’

The governor, who seriously mulled a 2024 GOP White House run before ultimately deciding against it in June, has been vocal defender of his state’s cherished presidential primary position, and has long railed against efforts by national Democrats to knock New Hampshire from the top of the order.

‘It’s an outrageous request to think that the Democrat National Committee is going to dictate our laws and our process, which has been tried and true,’ Sununu told Fox News Digital last December.

The DNC overwhelmingly voted in early February to dramatically alter the top of its presidential nominating calendar for the 2024 election cycle, bumping Iowa and New Hampshire from their longtime leadoff positions.

However, seven months later, there is no resolution with New Hampshire or Iowa, and the national Democratic Party is still working to implement its revamped primary schedule.

The push by the DNC to upend its primary calendar — in order to better reflect Black and Hispanic voters in the early primary contests — has been vigorously opposed in New Hampshire.

‘Granite Staters appreciate and respect the responsibility of the over 100-year tradition of the First in the Nation New Hampshire primary. They understand New Hampshire has a special place in the history of American politics and their place in it. We look forward to continuing that tradition here next year, and in the years to come,’ longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said earlier this summer.

Democrats for years have knocked both Iowa and New Hampshire as unrepresentative of the party as a whole, for being largely White with few major urban areas. Nevada and South Carolina, which in recent cycles have voted third and fourth on the calendar, are much more diverse than either Iowa or New Hampshire. Nevada and South Carolina were added to the Democratic calendar nearly two decades ago to increase the diversity of the early states electorate.

The DNC overwhelmingly approved a calendar proposed by President Biden to move South Carolina to the lead position, with a Feb. 3, 2024, primary. New Hampshire and Nevada are scheduled to hold primaries three days later, followed by Georgia and Michigan. The president and supporters of the plan have argued that it would empower minority voters, whom Democrats have long relied on but have at times taken for granted.

‘This committee put together a calendar proposal that reflects our values and will strengthen our party. This calendar does what is long overdue. It expands the number of voices in the early window. And it elevates diverse communities that are at core of the Democratic Party,’ DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said earlier this year.

However, implementing the calendar has been anything but easy.

South Carolina Democrats are on board, but Palmetto State Republicans will hold their primary later in February. Nevada Democrats are game, but the Silver State’s GOP — after an unsuccessful legal push to opt out of a Feb. 6 primary — is aiming to hold a Republican presidential caucus two days later. Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State this spring set the state’s primary date for May 12 of next year, rebuffing the DNC.

Iowa, which was left out of the DNC’s early voting states calendar, is still looking for ways to remain the leadoff contest without violating party rules. 

New Hampshire has a nearly half-century-old law that mandates that it hold the first presidential primary, a week ahead of any similar contest.

The DNC earlier this year extended an earlier deadline until Sept. 1 for New Hampshire to come into compliance or face getting booted from the early state window for the 2024 cycle.

To comply, New Hampshire needs to scrap its state law protecting its first-in-the-nation primary status and must expand access to early voting. However, with Republicans in control of New Hampshire’s governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature, state Democrats have repeatedly argued that is a non-starter.

‘The DNC’s waiver requirement is unrealistic and unattainable, as the New Hampshire Democratic Party cannot dictate to the Republican governor and state legislative leaders what to do, and because it does not have the power to change the primary date unilaterally,’ Buckley has repeatedly emphasized.

And on Thursday he added that ‘we have done everything in our power to comply with the DNC’s requests with regard to our primary calendar and have every intention of complying with New Hampshire state law from which the primary date is set. We look forward to putting this unnecessary distraction behind us and focusing on electing Granite State Democrats.’

If New Hampshire is eventually ruled non-compliant, the state could lose half of its delegates to next summer’s Democratic presidential nominating convention, under DNC penalties passed last year.

That appears to be the route ahead.

Scanlan announced at a news conference Wednesday that the filing period for presidential candidates to sign up to put their name on the New Hampshire ballot will extend from Oct. 11 to Oct. 27. That is about three weeks earlier than four years ago during the 2020 cycle, when the New Hampshire primary was held on Feb. 11. Scanlan said such a filing period would likely lead to a January primary.

‘I don’t think it’s a secret that we’ll be going ahead of South Carolina, which puts us into January,’ Scanlan emphasized.

‘I’m just assuming we’re going to be in noncompliance with the Democratic National Committee,’ Scanlan told Fox News. 

Pointing to a DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting, Scanlan emphasized that ‘we’ll see what comes out of that. But that’s not going to affect what we do in New Hampshire at all.’ 

There are plenty of Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire who see the upending of their leadoff positions as sour grapes from Biden, who finished a disappointing fourth in the 2020 Iowa caucuses and fifth in the New Hampshire primary, before a second-place finish in Nevada and a landslide victory in South Carolina propelled him toward the nomination and eventually the White House.

With New Hampshire nearly certain to move up the date of its contest, President Biden will likely stay off the ballot in the Granite State to avoid an unsanctioned primary. With Biden’s two primary challengers — environmental lawyer and high-profile vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and best-selling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson — taking aim at the president and the DNC as they repeatedly campaign in New Hampshire, trouble could be brewing for the president in the Granite State’s primary.

However, Buckley says there is a near consensus among New Hampshire Democrats in writing in Biden’s name on the primary ballot.

‘Whether or not Joe Biden puts his name on the ballot, he will win the New Hampshire Primary,’ Buckley told Fox News recently. 

Longtime New Hampshire based Democratic strategist Jim Demers, a top Biden supporter, said there’s ‘a lot of interest out there in doing something.’

‘I think he has done a good job as president and is worthy of being re-elected. That is my primary reasoning for writing Joe Biden’s name in come January if I have to,’ Demers told Fox News.

Pointing to Kennedy, who charges he is not getting a fair shake from the DNC as he challenges the president for the Democratic nomination, Demers said, ‘I also think that the views and positions that Robert Kennedy has taken are so out of touch with the average Democrat that it is concerning to see him on a ballot here, even if the election is non-binding.’

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

The Biden administration has hired a new czar to monitor efforts to remove certain books from school libraries across the country as officials continue to face backlash for instances in which sexually explicit and controversial LGBTQ+ books have been present, according to Politico.

Former Obama administration official and non-profit leader Matt Nosanchuk began work in the role this week as deputy assistant secretary in the Office for Civil Rights, and will lead training sessions for schools and libraries on book bans. Nosanchuk’s past work has focused heavily on the LGBTQ community.

‘Across the country, communities are seeing a rise in efforts to ban books — efforts that are often designed to empty libraries and classrooms of literature about LGBTQ people, people of color, people of faith, key historical events and more,’ an Education Department official said in a Thursday email to reporters. ‘These efforts are a threat to student’s rights and freedoms.’

The first session will be held via webinar for up to 1,000 attendees on Sep. 26.

According to the American Library Association, which will be hosting the session, attendees will learn how the Education Department enforces federal civil rights laws, including how the law applies to libraries, how ‘book bans’ might violate civil rights laws, and how to submit complaints about potential violations.

Nosanchuk’s appointment comes just days after a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on so-called ‘book bans’ that went viral after Sen. John Kennedy, R.-La., grilled a college activist over whether parents should have a say in what books are available in public libraries.

One of the books Kennedy read from during the hearing, ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue’ by George M. Johnson, has been banned in at least 29 local school districts and includes a graphic description of anal sex and other activities.

It was just the latest example of some of the controversial books being brought to light as concerned parents have been clashing with school districts over the last two years over their rights to be involved, and opt their kids out of certain curricula deemed inappropriate. 

The Education Department and White House have not responded to Fox News Digital.

Fox News’ Jamie Joseph contributed to this report.