Wednesday night, Team McCarthy was celebrating its first “victory”— a close win in a motion to adjourn the House. The only reason they won the 216-214 vote was because Paul Gosar changed his vote at the last second from nay to aye and because two Democrats, Tony Cárdenas and Adriano Espaillat, were in the bathroom snorting coke or whatever they were doing instead of being on the floor. McCarthy then retired to see what else he could give away to the fascist fringe that might get them to let him be speaker. He has caved-in to every single demand— even allowing just one member to trigger a vacate the chair motion any day or every day, something he pledged he would never agree to. Of course what they really want-- their dream-- is debt default and the end of Social Security. And McCarthy is just the jellyfish to even agree to that!
Now his spinelessness is beginning to piss off the mainstream conservatives in the caucus, especially as McCarthy agrees to put more and more fascists on key committees— like the Rules Committee, bumping mainstream supporters off. The fascists have also demanded assurances that they will get key subcommittee chairs and McCarthy has rolled over on that as well. Politico reported that “[I]f push comes to shove, McCarthy may well sacrifice his backers’ ambitions to realize his own speakership dream,” handing over committee gavels to fascists and leaving his own backers disappointed (and furious). “That won’t sit well with centrists or even mainstream conservatives, who will no doubt argue that McCarthy is rewarding bad behavior. One senior Republican aide complained to us on Wednesday night that McCarthy’s concessions would undercut the party in the long run. ‘He’s essentially given away all the power of the speakership. He’s making it to where these Freedom Caucus guys can stop anything they want,’ the aide told us. ‘It’s a vanity project. This majority is going to be miserable. It’s just absurd what he’s given away to these guys just to be speaker when I’m sure there’s somebody in this conference that the Freedom Caucus would have accepted as speaker and not demanded all of these crazy changes.’a’ And… his SuperPAC has agreed to stop picking electable mainstream candidates in primaries, incredibly great news for Democrats.
McCarthy has also agreed— in return for Ralph Norman’s vote— to allow a vote of Norman’s constitutional amendment instituting term limits for Congress (3 terms for the House and 2 for the Senate). Keep in mind— no none trusts McCarthy’s word. And, none of this is persuading the members who just do not want McCarthy as speaker no matter how many concessions he makes— at least Gaetz, Biggs, Good, Rosendale and Boebert, all of whom now see their own careers in jeopardy of McCarthy becomes speaker. Politico reported that freshman Eli Crane, a fascist from Arizona who McCarthy spent over two million dollars helping get elected, might be in that camp as well. There’s also Scott Perry (PA) and Anna Paulina Luna (FL), neither of whom is very familiar with reality. And it looks like MAGA crackpot Dan Bishop (NC) just told his constituents he'd resign from Congress if McCarthy gets the job, although he later denied that's what he meant. And, unless McCarthy make deal with the Democrats to help him— very unlikely— this Gaetz crew can blow up any and all deals cut. One Democratic member told me yesterday that she thinks we “will soon see polls, manufactured by the NRCC, showing the holdouts losing their 2024 primaries against, basically, anyone. These will be fake, but they will signal that the NRCC intends to spend big against them.”
Ken Buck (R-CO) another McCarthy backer in the Freedom Caucus, set McCarthy allies scrambling after he told us off the chamber floor that the GOP leader needed to make a deal that day— or step aside and let someone like Scalise have a go. Within an hour, as he went on CNN to repeat those words, we spotted incoming Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) standing off camera, waiting to corner Buck and try to muscle him back in line.
On the chamber floor, McCarthy’s whip team went to work, feverishly trying to win over some of his 20 detractors— and to discern which of them could still be won over with concessions. McCarthy also spent the evening meeting with freshman opponents who don’t have much of a relationship with him.
The chaotic scene underscored the absurdity of the entire situation. Republicans cheered when they got the votes to adjourn for the night, celebrating as if they’d just passed a massive tax cut deal when they were simply leaving once again without a speaker.
Buck at one point floated— quite seriously, in fact— that members host a meeting with booze, suggesting it might help move talks along. Upon entering a meeting, incoming NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson (R-NC) joked that his water bottle was actually full of vodka. Down the hall, former Michigan Rep. Justin Amash nerded out about how great the standoff was, mused over how he wished it had occurred when he was in Congress— then pitched himself for speaker. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a petite former dentist [and former Democratic congressman] from New Jersey often seen in pinstriped suits, argued that absent any agreement, the party’s leaders should “get everybody back in the caucus room and start beating the daylights out of each other until we get something.”
A silver lining— aside from George Santos not being sworn in— is that virtually none of the House GOP agenda is going to move forward. Think of all the damage they could already be causing if they weren't distracted like this!
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