What is the role of the anti-McCarthy group, and what is it telling us about the future of the Causal Committee?

To prevent that from happening, McCarthy and his team have been engaged in serious talks with a group of conservatives, including over potentially giving them influential committee assignments and more power to drive the legislative process. GOP sources said those negotiations are still early in the process and could ultimately end up giving the group some aspect of what the hardliners desperately want: additional power to seek a sitting speaker’s ouster with a vote on the floor.

The Title 42 emergency rule that allows border authorities to turn away migrants at the US- Mexico border is still used by the Biden administration. In fiscal year 2022, amid mass migration in the Western hemisphere, US border encounters topped 2 million, according to US Customs and Border Protection data. More than 1 million people were turned away.

“We will never use impeachment for political purposes,” McCarthy said. If something rises to the occasion, it would not be used at any other time.

And with the MAGA-wing calling to cut off funding to Ukraine while the GOP’s defense hawks vow not to abandon the country amid its war with Russia, McCarthy attempted to reaffirm his support for Ukraine while saying they would not automatically rubber stamp any additional requests for aid.

The strength of the anti-McCarthy group will be shown by the number of members who vote for someone else, according to a Virginia Republican. I think there will be more candidates on the second ballot. Republicans let us know they would like to be considered.

McCarthy’s detractors say that if he doesn’t have the speaker votes by January 3, he may need to embrace it. GOP sources tell CNN there could be room to give more power to members if they want, or allow the vote to happen if certain numbers of them want it, rather than single lawmaker calling for a vote.

Can the debt ceiling be a bargaining chip for a default? An open question from a freshman Rep Rep Marjorie Taylor Green

“I think ‘Stay in Mexico’ you have to have right off the bat,” he said, referring to the controversial policy where migrants were forced to remain in Mexico while they wait for their immigration proceedings in the United States.

To help stem the flow of fentanyl coming across the border, McCarthy said “you first do a very frontal attack on China to stop the poison from coming,” and then “provide the resources that the border agents need” and “make sure that fentanyl anytime anybody who wants to move it, you can prosecute him for the death penalty.”

Most bills won’t be able to pass the Senate and the president will veto them, but they have to raise the national borrowing limit at some point next year. McCarthy, however, signaled Republicans will demand spending cuts in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling, teeing up a risky fiscal showdown that could lead to a disastrous debt default.

“If you’re going to give a person a higher limit, wouldn’t you first say you should change your behavior, so you just don’t keep raising and all the time?” he said. “You shouldn’t just say, ‘Oh, I’m gonna let you keep spending money.’ No household should do that.”

McCarthy admitted that Republicans would try to raise the debt ceiling under Donald Trump, but said that Democrats spent trillions of dollars during Biden’s presidency.

When pressed on whether he’s willing to risk a default by using the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip, McCarthy insisted that wouldn’t happen: “People talk about risking it. You do not risk a default.

McCarthy has promised to give the freshman Rep, Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia, her committee assignments back even though she was stripped of her assignments last year due to her inflammatory remarks.

McCarthy said there were no restrictions on which committees Greene could serve on. According to CNN, she wants a seat on the House’s Oversight Committee because it will play a key role in GOP-led investigations.

“She’s going to have committees to serve on, just like every other member … He said that as we go through the steering committee, they will look at it. “She can put through the committees she wants, just like any other member in our conference that gets elected.”

There are other members who have spouted conspiracy theories or rhetoric. Most recently, some Republicans have mocked the brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, or peddled fringe conspiracy theories about the incident.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/07/politics/kevin-mccarthy-interview-border-security/index.html

The Freedom Caucus: Why we need a red line for the speaker of the House? A case study of a Democrat aide in the House of Representatives

“The first thing I’ll ask the president to do is not to call half the nation idiots or say things about them because they have a difference of opinion,” he said. I think leadership matters and probably starts with the president. And it will start with the speaker as well.”

Multiple of my constituents are questioning the wisdom of proceeding forward with that leadership, and there needs to be a “frank discussion” about who they pick for the top job.

Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado said it was a “red line” for her, but not everyone in the Freedom Caucus is united on whether to make that a hard line.

The Freedom Caucus, a group consisting of dozens of hardline members, have been meeting in Washington, DC this week to plot out their strategy for the speaker’s race. With a slimmer-than-expected majority, they see an opportunity, and are planning to use their leverage to get more power in a GOP-led House.

But the group’s push to extract concessions from McCarthy has exacerbated tensions inside the party. One senior lawmaker said that they were a bunch of selfish people who want attention for themselves. They are trading effectiveness for the warm embrace of their social media followers.”

CNN has not projected which party will control the House of Representatives, but it is projected that the Republicans will have more seats than the Democrats.

Do We Need a Small Majority? Correspondence to Norman and Biggs on the Future of the House Intelligence Caucus

Norman said the group hopes to get a longer list of rules changes. McCarthy doesn’t appear to plan to delay next week’s internal leadership elections.

When asked whether McCarthy should get credit for delivering the majority, Norman responded: “The taxpayers that voted the representatives in deserve the credit.”

But there is at least one member who has said there is nothing McCarthy could do to earn his vote. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said on his podcast that not only was McCarthy not his first choice to lead, he was not “even in my top 100”.

Gaetz said that the C team should not started with a slim majority. We need to put our star players in a good spot so that they can shine and give us more ideas to work on.

Similar recriminations are taking place across the Capitol, where some House Republicans are questioning their leadership’s embrace of the MAGA wing, lack of a cohesive message on abortion, and decisions to spend precious resources in deep blue territory late in the game.

McConnell still has enough support from his caucus to return to office, despite the increased anger that he is facing in the wake of Democrats retaining control of the Senate.

He’ll face at least one opponent: Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, a former chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. Biggs announced on Newsmax on Monday night that he would run against McCarthy, while acknowledging it would be “tough” to beat someone who has “raised a lot of money” to elect his colleagues.

Reversing the GOP: A Moment of Reconciliation after the 2016 Midterm U.S. Senate Elections in New Jersey and the “MAMA” Campaign

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is among those calling for a delay in the Senate leadership election scheduled for Wednesday, saying it “doesn’t make any sense” to have them this week.

“What is our plan, what are we running on? What is our stand for? Scott spoke on Fox News. The leadership of the Republican Senate told us we couldn’t have a plan and that we were going to run against the Democrats. They capitulated to the Democrats. Now they want to rush through an election. We haven’t even finished what’s happened in Georgia.”

It’s a stunning reversal of fortunes – and potential moment of reckoning – for the once-bullish GOP, with party leaders now scrambling to quell the brewing rebellions in their ranks and explain why the election did not go their way. The disappointing results made it difficult for the leader of the House GOP campaign arm to become the whip, a position that if Republicans capture the majority will only become available.

They have been putting together an agenda while measuring the drapes. They haven’t won it yet,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “After the election is concluded, depending on who was in the majority, there’ll be judgments made within their own party, in our own parties, as to how we go forward.”

Behind the scenes, the finger pointing has already begun, and those conversations are likely to accelerate as the full House and Senate return to Washington this week for the first time since the midterm elections.

Trump and his allies have tried to make McConnell the fall guy for the GOP’s lackluster midterm performance, accusing McConnell of spending recklessly in states where Republicans faced significant headwinds at the expense of candidates in more competitive contests.

There is a high correlation between big losses and candidates who are members of the “MAMA” movement, said retired Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey. The reason why I think my party needs to face the fact that fealty to Trump is the most important criteria for selecting candidates is because we probably won’t do very well.

McConnell and Scott have been at each other’s throats all election cycle when it comes to strategy, with McConnell sounding the alarm about candidate quality while Scott took a hands-off approach in the primaries.

When pressed on whether he would challenge McConnell for the top spot, Scott didn’t rule it out — even though he would have little chance of succeeding.

While McCarthy has been willing to hear out his critics and the potential hold outs, so far, he is not giving in to any of their demands for more power and promises of investigations into the Biden administration.

“Basic political physics says you can’t appease the moderates and HFC all at the same time,” one senior Republican told CNN. If you straddle it, you better hope it’s not barbed wire.

It also showed how much personal power she had after she lined up to support McCarthy in his speakership. After coming to Congress as a fringe figure, and quickly losing her committee assignments over her past retweets of violent rhetoric against Democrats, Greene now promises to be one of the most prominent faces of the new GOP majority. She has the ability to make things offensive to many people without fear of being reprimanded by her party’s leader. It also shows that while Trump’s power may have waned elsewhere, his influence over his followers in the House is still strong.

“No, I’m not going to get into speculation,” Scalise told CNN. We are focused on resolving it by January 3. There are a lot of conversations going on with the members who have expressed concerns.

Two people familiar with the exchange who are not authorized to speak on the matter said that Mr. Scalise apologized and said he should have waited until he had more information.

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The turmoil underscored how Republicans were toiling to find a path forward after disappointing midterm results, and still grappling with the influence of Mr. Trump and his election lies on their party, including the fallout from the Jan. 6 attack. It came as former Vice President Mike Pence made his most scathing comments yet about Mr. Trump’s actions during the assault on the Capitol, and as Mr. Trump himself, who has received an unusual torrent of internal blame for the string of midterm losses by candidates he had handpicked, geared up for an expected announcement on Tuesday night that he would run for president again.

Tom Cole of Oklahoma said it was going to be a narrow one. That makes it essential that you have someone with good political skills. Somebody knows everything that goes on in this conference.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is hoping to pass a crucial test on Tuesday in his campaign to become House speaker despite an underwhelming midterm election performance that launched a search among conservatives for a challenger.

Idaho GOP Rep. Mike Simpson said he’ll support McCarthy for leader, noting the GOP gained House seats the last two elections. Simpson was positive that the man had done a good job.

In recent weeks, part of McCarthy’s pitch to his critics has been warning that if they don’t unify, then Democrats could theoretically band together and peel off a few Republicans to elect the next speaker.

Bob Good criticized McCarthy during the leadership forum for not calling to congratulate him when he won his primary, the source in the room said, and he complained about McCarthy’s opposition to pro-Trump candidates. McCarthy said that he directed $2 million to Good. The source said that good had to be told to stop speaking so they could ask the next question.

But McCarthy’s allies have recently attempted to convince moderate Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar to switch parties in hopes of padding their slim margins, according to two sources familiar with the conversation. Cuellar flatly rejected the idea. The GOP leader was unaware of the conversations if they took place and this is not part of their strategy for the majority or for his speakership bid.

The House GOP position is still up for grabs, with the majority whip position potentially up for grabs, if Republicans win control of the chamber.

At the private forum, Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the National Republican Congressional Committee chair, was pressed on his vote in support of a bill to codify same-sex marriage earlier this year, according to a source in the room. His response was that the divisive social issues shouldn’t be on the House floor.

Emmer is running against Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana, the Republican Study Committee chair, and Drew Ferguson of Georgia, the chief deputy Whip, for the post.

But in the case of a doomsday scenario – where neither McCarthy nor Biggs can get 218 votes on January 3 and neither drops out – some pro-McCarthy Republicans are signaling support for a different approach. The idea of finding a moderate Republican who could garner the majority of votes needed to become speaker is a long shot that underscores the uncertainty surrounding the speaker’s race.

If Republicans do not bend, then he would be willing to work with Democrats to get another more moderate Republican to vote for Speaker.

If Kevin took his name out you would have a lot of good people running. Scalise would probably be the guy,” one GOP lawmaker said.

Scalise has repeatedly vowed to support McCarthy and refused to speculate on whether he would jump into the race if the GOP leader can’t get the votes.

Rep. Jim Jordan, the conservative set to become the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, went even further, ruling out jumping into the race even though Gaetz and other hardliners have urged him to seek the speakership.

“I will vote for Andy for speaker, subject to what we’re discussing,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican after leaving a meeting in McCarthy’s office on Wednesday. He said all this is positive. We’re having good change, regardless of what happens. And you’ll see more of it.”

In addition to those five, a new group of seven Republican hardliners on Thursday laid out a list of conditions to earn their vote, although they did not specifically threaten to vote against McCarthy if their demands aren’t met.

McCarthy still has more levers that he could pull. The House Rules Committee, a leadership-aligned panel that decides when bills come to the floor, is under fire from conservatives who want more representation. A person who knows about the matter said that McCarthy was urged to take a harder stance on next year’s policy issues after a private meeting with a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

But one member told CNN they also conveyed concern to McCarthy about restoring the motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. The tool was constantly wielded over former Speaker John Boehner’s head before he eventually resigned, and most Republicans are concerned that it would hamper their ability to effectively govern.

The idea that people are tired of fighting and noise makes them not want to watch a red wave. “And I know I get that wherever I go in my district is, ‘why can’t you guys just get things done?’”

McCarthy delayed the GOP internal elections because he was trying to lock down speaker’s votes. There was a rumor that one of the members competing for the gavel, from Florida, could retire early if he doesn’t win. But Buchanan vehemently disputed the notion.

Some Democrats have said they would be interested in the idea, including one who said that his GOP colleagues had approached him about it.

Joyce also said some members have reached out to him about potentially running, but he dismissed it. “At the end of the day, Kevin’s going to be the new speaker.”

The next House Democratic leader said that there were no behind-the-scenes discussions with Republicans to put up an alternative candidate. But he refused to rule out a scenario where his caucus would help elect the next speaker if McCarthy couldn’t get the votes.

“Democrats are in the process of organizing the Democratic Conference,” Jeffries told CNN on Thursday. The Republican Conference is being organized by Republicans. Let’s see what happens on January 3.”

Retiring congressmen who voted to impeach Donald Trump, like John Katako of New York, are examples of the potential consensus picks that have been floated.

But that would require agreement from every single Democrat and the help of five Republicans – no easy feat. He told CNN he was going to be skiing and wouldn’t be in Washington that day.

In Arkansas, a decade ago, minority Democrats in the legislature joined forces with a few Republicans to get a GOP speaker of their choice. Westerman had a closed-door meeting this week with his colleagues.

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“I’m concerned about January 3 getting here and us not being able to form a Congress and organize committees and getting delayed in pushing the policy objectives that we want to push,” Westerman said.

Westerman said that the discussion over changing House rules would be good for the party. But he added: “I’m not really excited about any type of destructive movement.”

The House Republican Conference is still entrenched in an internal war over whether to reinstate an arcane rule that would empower any member to bring up a vote to oust a speaker at any time.

There is a reason the motion to vacate is currently being debated. You can’t govern with a gun to your head and that is what they are asking for. The Texas Republican told CNN that it made us more unstable, and that it also made Democrats more likely to create chaos. “There is a reason people are against it. It’s a path to chaos, not stability, and we will have to be very united and very stable if we are going to govern properly.

There is no CEO in the country that is not held accountable. There’s nobody that goes to work every day that doesn’t have accountability. The country can not wait two years for accountability according to Scott Perry, a conservative Republican from Pennsylvania.

The vetting of Miss America: Where are we heading? What are we going to go next? A phone conversation with Mr. Scalise

The vetting of candidates for Miss America is more done by them than by the speaker. “We’re vetting it. … We are going through the process. It’s a healthy process.”

Steve Scalise, Republican Whip, told reporters Tuesday that there are continuing negotiations going on to keep the motion to vacate open.

McCarthy held a meeting where he let his members debate rules changes and other concessions even though there is still no resolution regarding the controversial motion to remove the chair.

Some in the GOP conference are downplaying the impact of the fight over the motion to vacate with Rep. Jim Jordan, a conservative member from Ohio and one-time thorn in the side of GOP leadership, telling CNN that while some colleagues are holding firm on their demands for the motion to vacate that the conference is going to “keep talking.”

“I think we’re going to get there. Kevin is going to be elected speaker on January 3, so I think that we will get to that date. We will hit the ground running. What do we got, three weeks? Jordan thinks progress is being made.

Mace said she doesn’t have an opinion at the moment but added, “If we can get the conference together and unify that is our biggest strength.” We have to work together.

Rogers urged his fellow Republicans to unite and said that they have challenges ahead of them. “This is a time we need to take leadership, get our leader elected and get on about our agenda,” he said.

If Mr. McCarthy does have a plan, he has not shared it with members of his leadership team, whom he has cut out of his deliberations about the speakership race in what some regard as a display of paranoia. In recent days, he has been seen around both the Capitol and the Republican National Committee Headquarters with Jeff Miller, a Republican lobbyist.

Mr. Norman, who has described himself as a “hard no” against Mr. McCarthy, declined to discuss his call with Mr. Trump, describing it as a “private conversation.” He said he was still undecided about whom he would support for speaker. Mr. Crane did not reply to any requests for comment.

Nancy Pelosi was able to secure enough support to get the speaker’s gavel after she picked off defectors and cut deals to get enough votes. Ms. Pelosi won seven votes by agreeing to limit her time in Congress, picked up another eight by agreeing to implement rules aimed at fostering more bipartisan legislating, and then won over her sole would-be challenger by creating a subcommittee chairmanship.

The California Republican has already made a series of pledges in an effort to appease the right flank of his party. He traveled to the southern border and called on Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings. He promised the woman who was stripped of her committee assignments for making a series of violent and conspiratorial social media posts that she would be on the Oversight Committee.

He promised to hold public hearings concerning the security breakdown that occurred at the Capitol after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. He has been quietly meeting with ultraconservative lawmakers in an effort to win them over. And on Monday night, he publicly encouraged his members to vote against the lame-duck spending bill to fund the government.

Demagogic Effort to Fund the Government: The Case for a Few Months after the 2016 US Senate Budget Closing

After a disappointing finish to the US elections, a fragile governing mandate for any party in the history of our country is on the line. The ideological battle being waged by pro-Donald Trump extremists inside the party would have made even a comfortable majority volatile.

The California Republican is fighting a fight against members who want to make it easier to fire a speaker and he is appeasing ex- President Donald Trump and his followers in order to save his political base.

McCarthy used to be a pleasant speaker, but now tries out soundbites with the press to get the attention of the press as badges of honor.

This is one reason why the current year-end tussle over whether to fund the government for a full year – a bipartisan framework agreement for which was announced Tuesday night – or for just a few months is so critical since it could dump a fiscal crisis on the lap of a weak and easily manipulated new speaker next month.

Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday about Greene’s latest inflammatory comments, McCarthy shrugged them off: “Oh, I think she said she was being facetious,” the possible future speaker answered. His attitude was not a surprise; it was consistent with his attempts to rewrite the history of the worst attack on US democracy in modern times, for which he briefly said Trump bore responsibility.

The same dynamic was at play when McCarthy declined to directly criticize the ex-president for meeting with white supremacist Nick Fuentes at a dinner also featuring Kanye West, the rapper now known as Ye, who has recently made a string of antisemitic remarks. In a histrionic performance at the White House after meeting Biden and other congressional leaders last month, the House Republican leader falsely claimed that Trump had condemned Fuentes four times, when he hadn’t done so once.

According to a report on Tuesday, McCarthy had indicated at the White House meeting that he would be open to a large bill. McCarthy told members that he was a “Hell no” on the measure, even though McConnell declared it to be “broadly appealing” on Tuesday.

The split raises the possibility that Senate Republicans could be more hesitant to vote for a spending deal now that McCarthy has taken up his line.

As frustration inside the House GOP has grown over a small band of anti-Kevin McCarthy lawmakers, an idea to strike back at the rebellious group has been floated among some Republicans: kicking these members off their committees, according to multiple members involved in the conversations.

The dynamic offers a preview of the tensions between the moderate and MAGA wings that are likely to spill over next year with a razor-thin House majority. Part of what’s fueling the divide: House Republicans who identify as either centrist or part of the GOP’s so-called governing wing feel validated following a midterm cycle in which many extremists candidates failed.

Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, said that people shouldn’t double down on failed policies and failed candidates. “There’s a reason the midterms were the way that they were: people who are left of center, right of center were the most successful.”

The reality of a narrowly divided House was acknowledged by Matt Gaetz, who came out in opposition to McCarthy as speaker.

“We are in a community of common fate,” he told CNN. The ship is not going anywhere if five people don’t row in that direction. And that’s true on impeachment, it’s true on the speakership vote, it’s true on the budget, it’s true on policy choices.”

“Some of the questions that remain unanswered is what other deals are going to be cut, you know, what guarantees, what concessions are going to be made?” Womack asked. “We got to be careful that we don’t give a lot of that leverage away.”

Why there is so much controversy in the House Freedom Caucus, and why it is an enormous amount of drama in the high-stakes negotiations

“It shouldn’t be a surprise that Republicans are out there having conversations and talking about different points of view,” GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida told CNN.

Even amid the high-stakes negotiations, members from competing factions have had time to have some fun with one another. Burchett hosted a Christmas party in his office this week, where all corners of Capitol Hill came together, including some anti-McCarthy lawmakers. Amid the Mountain Dew fountain and “charcuterie plate” consisting of Cheez Whiz and Ritz crackers, Burchett at one point rode the skateboard of Gaetz’s wife.

The congressman from Utah said that the various groups actually agree on most things and that it was not going to be a bad year.

Moore told CNN, “There is not this huge amount of drama and that is what I have said over and over again.” I met with the House Freedom Caucus members to discuss issues that they agree on. And it’s an enormous amount.”