The Case Of The Missing Secret Agreement— McCarthy’s 3 Vanishing Pages Of Promises

Dishonesty is McCarthy's middle name; click his nose

A couple of days ago— before the fascist fringe had wrung every last conceivable concession out of McCarthy— a progressive in the House told me that “Even though I actually trusted Pelosi and Hoyer, when I made a deal with them, I made sure that there was something in the Congressional Record about it, so there would be no reneging. I didn’t see anyone in the GOP doing that. And McCarthy is an incessant liar. Boy, are they going to be disappointed.”

Around the same time, Freedom Caucus chair Scott Perry, in two separate tweets, wrote “A deal is NOT done. When confidences are betrayed and leaks are directed, it’s even more difficult to trust. Totally unsat. I will not yield to the status quo” and then “We’re at a Reagan moment— ‘trust but verify.’ The devil is in the details, and we’ll take our time to ensure it’s right, not easy. One way or another, the status quo must go.” A day or two later I saw a tweet by Perry saying “If the framework blows up, I’m out.” I can’t find it on his feed; maybe he took to down. Generally, the Republicans are acting as though there never was a framework, just some informal, handshake agreements. But that isn’t true:

Calvert admitted he had a copy and Dusty Johnson (R-SD) said he wasn’t “at liberty to discuss whether I’ve seen [the secret document] or not.” Obviously, if it didn’t exist, he’d be at liberty to say so. Peoplewould like to know what’s in the agreement. Yesterday, CNN’s Melanie Zanona reported that “Speaker McCarthy told his members during a closed-conference meeting that there is no official document or 3-page addendum to the House Rules package detailing the additional concessions he made to his critics, per sources in the room.” Later, she expanded, writing that neither side is wiling to commit publicly about the details the agreements, “undercutting the Republican pledge to run their chamber openly and transparently and as some rank-and-file members call for more information about the promises that were made. One Republican member told her that “We’ve been loyal and it’s a slap in the face.”

Further adding to the frustration and confusion, there was another document flying around K Street listing out all the alleged McCarthy concessions even as House GOP Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota [perhaos the only member of the House less honest thanMcCarthy and George Santos] asserted that the document is not completely accurate.

…In one of the biggest concessions with major economic ramifications, the slide presentation said House Republicans “will not agree” to a raising the nation’s borrowing limit “without budget agreement or commensurate fiscal reforms.” That demand already has drawn sharp pushback from Senate Democrats and could prompt a huge fight with the White House with the prospect of a first-ever default looming sometime this year.

Hmmm… this all sounds like a whole lotta bullshit. All during the embarrassing, multiple votes for Speaker, the fascist fringe was clear they wanted concessions in writing— because no one trusts McCarthy’s word. But now the point is that rankandfile members aren’t be allowed to go over the agreement McCarthy made with the fascist fringe— be they in writing (likely) or not. This morning, Aaron Blake reported the addendum’s existence “remains shrouded in mystery,” with McCarthy claiming it doesn’t exist and some members confirming “they’ve seen such a document.”

What we do know is that there is apparently some kind of document out there— though it’s unclear that it’s “official” or technically an “addendum” to the House rules— and that many Republicans are in the dark about it. (Punchbowl reported that members aren’t allowed to keep a copy, apparently for fear of it leaking.)

We know the broad strokes of the deal McCarthy struck, but not its full scope. And that raises the obvious question: Why not? And why the apparent lack of curiosity from House Republicans about forcing the issue?

At least one member is pushing for answers. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) indicated over the weekend that she might vote against the rules package because of the lack of transparency. She ultimately relented— just as McCarthy allies voted for him for speaker despite grumbling about being in the dark— but said she will continue to push for the agreement’s release.

“If it’s not okay for the far left to cut deals in secret, then why is it okay for a few on the far right to cut deals in secret?” Mace said at Tuesday’s meeting of the House GOP conference.

What we know about the concessions McCarthy made is that they apparently contain some of the more controversial points — especially as compared with the rules package itself, which contained relatively few and passed with little fuss. Among them, as the Washington Post’s Marianna Sotomayor and Leigh Ann Caldwell report:

Those concessions place limits on new spending, including defense spending, which has frustrated some defense hawks. Leadership also agreed to prioritize for a vote an aggressive border security bill that would build a wall along the southern border, according to multiple aides and members of Congress familiar with the agreement who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations. The House would also vote on legislation to establish term limits for members to serve six terms or 12 years, a proposal that would require a constitutional amendment.

The deal also apparently included concessions on committees. But there, too, precisely what form those concessions took isn’t clear.

We know that McCarthy has agreed to things like putting a certain number of hard-right Republicans on the influential Rules Committee, but McCarthy has said he didn’t promise anyone chairmanships. Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), an ally who said he has seen the document, told Axios that it included “no names, just representation.”

At the same time, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) claimed over the weekend that he had secured a slot on the House Republican Steering Committee, which decides committee chairmanships and assignments, in exchange for flipping his speaker vote back to McCarthy…

As for why, the obvious answer is that it’s just not terribly helpful to put yourself on the record agreeing to these things. Being forced to agree to such extensive concessions reinforces that McCarthy is a diminished speaker at the mercy of a small number of holdouts. It also would have risked alienating the allies that stood by McCarthy’s side. Sharing specifics would mean McCarthy would have to account for them and his ability to live up to the deal publicly. Some— such as cutting defense spending— open the GOP up to discord and criticism (and those are just the terms for which we know the basic outline).

While that would explain keeping this information from the public, though, it doesn’t explain why even House members appear to be in the dark. Those members have declined to truly press the issue, voting for McCarthy and then the rules package when they could have used both for leverage. McCarthy got what he wanted, ultimately winning both votes without being forced to show the hand that he has left himself with.

As Mace notes, for a party that has hailed its new rules as ushering in an era of transparency and empowering the rank-and-file members, it’s an inauspicious start.

“No one’s surprised,” one GOP staffer told me in confidence. “Everyone knows McCarthy will say anything, any time to anyone… The guy is a cliche and this isn’t going to end well.”