How Much Leeway Will The House Freedom Caucus Give McCarthy & Biden Before They Freak Out?

Carefully choreographed, Hakeem Jeffries read his lines Monday: “As part of the effort to find common ground we’re willing to consider freezing spending. That is not an extreme proposal. That is a reasonable proposal.” That’s a cut in benefits to poor families due to inflation. So… not a whisper about increased taxes on the rich or even closed loopholes, just… Well, apparently Biden has agreed that Democrats in Congress will hold hands with Republicans as they screw over working families so that neither party definitively owns the pain and suffering. In the end, it will be Biden's pet lobbyist Steve Ricchetti who gives McCarthy what he needs and McCarthy knows it: "I can’t say enough about the staff from the White House and the OMB director and also Ricchetti. They’re principled, they’re smart, they’re intelligent and they’re very professional in all of these negotiations."

But the Freedom Caucus isn’t going to be tricked. Pennsylvania fascist Scott Perry: “It was not a big cut; it was the same money we were spending five months ago. What we’re willing to accept is what we passed last month. That’s why we passed it.”

Will the Freedom Caucus go along with the dance in the end? Or will they force a vacate the chair vote and make the Democrats provide voters to keep the speaker’s gavel in McCarthy’s hands? This morning Olivia Beavers reported that the fascist fringe of the House Republicans are watching McCarthy closely for any signs of attempted normalcy. “They say they’re confident he won’t let them down in the debt fight. But their support will be difficult to maintain: A majority of Freedom Caucus members want him to refuse to accept any changes to the House GOP debt plan that passed along party lines last month.” McCarthy-hater Bob Good (R-VA): “I also don’t think there’s any interest in our conference in weakening or undermining or diminishing what we’ve done … [McCarthy’s] going to stare down the Democrats and make them sign that bill.”

“Marc Molinaro (R-NY),” she wrote, “takes a view of the speaker’s mandate that’s nearly the opposite of Good’s. ‘We have a bipartisan government. The only way we get a debt ceiling bill adopted is through some degree of compromise,’ Molinaro said. ‘I joined my colleagues in giving Speaker McCarthy the ability to negotiate— negotiation means that you accept some differences.’ Over the weekend, GOP negotiators leaned into their demands for stricter work requirements for government social programs as well as the addition of parts of their border bill to any final agreement, a position Democrats viewed as a shift in the wrong direction.”

Of course there are some— the voices of chairs and anomie— who want the negotiations to fail and for the country to default. Beavers noted that “Pro-Trump voices off the Hill are helping encourage House conservatives to dig in: Steve Bannon spoke at a Saturday event hosted by the Trump-aligned Center for Renewing America telling some Republican members to push for additional concessions in any debt deal. ‘Up the ante, be bold and stick to our guns. That’s his message,’ said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), who heard Bannon talk in Virginia. ‘It was the most fascinating speech I’ve heard.’”

Matt Gaetz (R-FL), one of McCarthy’s biggest antagonists in the past, argued on Monday that “literally nobody except the press” was talking about the possibility of ousting the speaker.

McCarthy has sidestepped questions about whether he is concerned about losing conservative support during the debt talks, at times steering those queries to criticism of Democratic moves in the negotiations.

Asked Monday about whether he’d only put a debt bill on the floor if it can win a majority of House GOP votes, the speaker replied: “We’ll have a large number, more than half, of Republicans supporting it.”

If Democrats were hoping that rank-and-file Republicans, particularly those in battleground seats, might lose patience and press for McCarthy to bend, there are also few signs of that sort of movement.

Most House Republicans are united in one argument: The GOP debt ceiling plan was the first offer on the table, and that gave McCarthy momentum to push Democrats to rein in spending.

Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA), a battleground-district Republican, said in an interview that compromise is “the nature of negotiation.” But he underscored that Republicans “shouldn’t negotiate with ourselves before the President actually sits down in good faith.”

Rep. David Valadao (R-CA), a McCarthy ally who won a battleground district that swung to Biden in 2020, said that “I see no dissent” among any of the House GOP’s various factions so far.

“Just talking amongst fellow members,” he said, “we’re all unified behind the speaker.”

Yep… until they’re not.