The US-Mexico border emergency law for impeachment after the Russian-Russian war and a possible challenge to McCarthy as the speaker

The internal leadership elections will play a part in how McCarthy will deal with conservative hardliners. However, even that poses some risks for McCarthy, who also can’t afford to lose any of the lawmakers in the middle.

Title 42 is a Trump-era emergency rule that allows border authorities to turn migrants away at the US-Mexico border. The US border had 2 million encounters in fiscal year 2022, which was when mass migration occurred in the Western hemisphere. More than 1 million were turned away.

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

McCarthy tried to clarify that the GOP would not rubberstamp any more requests for aid even after the war with Russia ended, despite calls from the Trumpwing to cut off funding to Ukraine.

McCarthy said that he had watched both sides of the aisle and that he had handled members of his own party who spread dangerous conspiracy theories. “If I’m speaker, I’ll be the speaker for the whole House. So it won’t be looking at just Republicans. We will be looking at Democrats as well.

CNN reported that a possible challenge to McCarthy as the speaker candidate was under consideration by the group.

Why do Mexicans stay in Mexico, and why do they want to stay there? Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has shown no interest in the debt-collapse showdown

“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 stem the flow of drugs between the US and China, McCarthy said the first thing to do was attack China and give the border agents the resources they need.

Most bills will be primarily messaging endeavors, unlikely to overcome the president’s veto or the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, though they would have to pass legislation to fund the government and 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 I’m going to let you keep spending money. No household should do that.

McCarthy acknowledged Republicans were willing to raise the debt ceiling under Trump, but said the calculus is different now because Democrats spent trillions of dollars under Biden.

McCarthy insisted that he was not willing to risk a default by using the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip. You don’t risk a default.”

To that end, McCarthy has vowed to reinstate freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to her committee assignments, despite being stripped of her assignments by Democrats last year for her inflammatory remarks.

When asked if he has any restrictions about which committees Greene can serve, McCarthy – who will have a direct say in doling out those assignments – said “no.” She has told CNN that she wants to sit on the House Oversight Committee which will have a significant role in GOP investigations in a majority.

She will have committees that she will serve on just like every other member. He said that they would look at the requests as they went through the steering committee. “She can put through the committees she wants, just like any other member in our conference that gets elected.”

The other members have also said 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 Challenge of Running the House GOP in the Presence of an Illusion: The Case of a White House Speaker from the Freedom Caucus

“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 I think it probably starts with the president. The speaker will start it.

“We need to have a real discussion about whether he should be the speaker,” Biggs, who was in Washington, DC, last week for House Freedom Caucus meetings, told reporters. “I think we should have a very frank discussion internally about where we’re going to be going forward.”

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 that includes dozens of hardline members, have been meeting in Washington, DC, this week for their new member orientation, where they have begun 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.

The fight to win the position of House GOP Leader is heating up as the bitter divide develops. For McCarthy’s backers, the so-called motion to vacate is seen as little more than a promise of hostage taking, a tool that could be used by the right flank to hamstring McCarthy’s ability to lead the conference and effectively govern.

CNN is estimating that the Republicans will have more seats in the House than the Democrats, but no one knows which party will have control.

Bringing Back the Muppets: The Challenge of Midterm Elections and the Challenge of Replacing Homeland Security Secretary Mitch McCarthy

Norman said the group hopes to formalize a lengthier list of all the rules changes they are seeking. McCarthy hasn’t said if he’s going 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.”

McCarthy said that the rest of the conference couldn’t support a threshold as low as one person. The California Republican said that it was not about him. Gaetz said if it was a real offer, he would entertain it, even though he asked if he could get to yes if McCarthy came down to a single person threshold.

Gaetz said the C team shouldn’t start with a slim majority. “We need to put our star players in a position to shine brightest so that we can attract more people to our policies and ideas.”

The House and Senate Republicans will gather in a series of closed-doors this week to discuss what went wrong in the midterms and how to move forward, as their leaders are under fire after the disappointing election results.

And in the Senate, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been calling his colleagues over the last several days to shore up his support as his team plans to plow forward with leadership elections on Wednesday despite grumbling by a faction of dissenters who are trying to slam the brakes after their midterm debacle. They’re planning to have a Republican air clearing session.

In an opinion essay, Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, who is running as a protest candidate in the speaker race, noted that Mr. McCarthy had said before the midterm elections that he did not see grounds for impeaching any Biden administration officials. Mr. McCarthy stated that he was against the homeland security secretary.

The chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee is calling for a delay in the Senate leadership election on Wednesday, saying it doesn’t make sense.

“From a governing perspective, it’s important that Republicans don’t start January 3 by going face down and not having some clarity as to what we’re going to be able to accomplish” GOP Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas told CNN. We need to be able to show that the American people have trust and confidence in us, even though we only won a slim majority.

It is a stunning reversal of fortune for the once-bullish GOP, with party leaders scrambling to quell the rebellions in their ranks and explain why the election did not go their way. The disappointing results will make it difficult for Rep. Tom Emmer to become the House GOP whip, a position that will only become available if the Republicans capture the majority.

They have been putting together an agenda, 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.

But others in the party have placed the blame squarely on Trump, whose hand-picked candidates failed in key Senate races that determined control of the Senate. Plus McConnell’s super PAC spent more than any other group in Senate races – while Trump’s group spent a tiny fraction of that – a realty not lost on the Kentucky Republican’s allies.

“There’s a very high correlation between MAGA candidates and big losses,” said retiring Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. “I think my party needs to face the fact that if fealty to Donald Trump is the primary criteria for selecting candidates, we’re probably not going to do really well.”

McConnell and Scott have also been publicly at odds all election cycle when it comes to strategy, with McConnell sounding the alarm about candidate quality while Scott opted to take a hands-off approach in the primaries.

Even though Scott had little chance of succeeding, he didn’t rule out a challenge to McConnell for the top spot.

“Well, we’re still continuing to talk, but they have not moved,” McCarthy told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “And the difficulty here is that you know, we are the only Republican entity stopping the Biden administration. We will be the only ones who can move forward. It would delay the things we need to do from the beginning, making it harder to get things done.

A senior Republican told CNN that it was not possible to appease the moderates and HFC at the same time. You better hope it isn’t barbed wire if you straddle that fence.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, hasn’t given a clear idea what she wants to do next

The election of the next speaker will take place in January, but House Republicans will choose a nominee this week.

Nancy Pelosi, the current speaker of the House of Representatives, has not given a clear idea as to what she will do next. There is a lot of speculation regarding her political future, whether she will run again for the top leadership spot for House Democrats or not, as a new generation of potential leaders waits in the wings.

The candidate forum and leadership elections are scheduled for Monday, according to a schedule shared with CNN.

The first election on November 30 will be for the next House Democratic Caucus Chair and whoever is elected to that role will administer the rest of the leadership elections.

To be elected to any position in Democratic leadership, a candidate needs to win a majority among those present and voting. If more than two candidates run and no one wins a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes after the first round of voting will be eliminated and voting will proceed to a second round. The process goes on until there is a majority winner.

But if enough members of the Freedom Caucus withhold their support, it could imperil his speaker bid or force him to make deals to weaken the speakership, something he has long resisted.

Emmer told reporters Tuesday he still plans to run and that he doesn’t know if a smaller majority impacts his bid. But his pitch to members is similar to McCarthy’s, saying: “we delivered.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, a Trump ally and the head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, also officially declared his candidacy for the whip’s position. And Rep. Drew Ferguson of Georgia, the current deputy whip, is also vying for the post, arguing that his experience on the whip’s team will be even more valuable in a slimmer majority, where the chief vote counting job will be crucial for governing.

Yes, of course. The California Democrat said that he wasn’t asking anyone, and that people were campaigning. “And I’m not asking anyone for anything. My members are asking me to consider doing that. But, again, let’s just get through the election.”

Speakership Races in the House Minority Caucus: Kevin McCarthy and his Democrat-Independent Supremum Candidate Rep. Hakeem Jeffries

Currently, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer serves as the No. 2 House Democrat, in the role of House majority leader, and South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn serves in the role of House majority whip. Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark serves in the role of assistant Speaker and New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries serves as House Democratic caucus chair.

The co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee in Colorado, Joe Neguse, has announced his candidacy to replace Jeffries who is term limited.

The race to lead the party’s campaign arm, DCCC chair, is starting to take shape up after the current chair Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York lost his reelection.

Democratic Rep. Tony Cardenas of California announced his race for the spot on Friday but others are being floated as well including Reps. Ami Bera and Sara Jacobs of California.

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 that he will support McCarthy for leader. “He’s done a good job,” said Simpson.

“It’s not only delaying that,” McCarthy said of recruiting GOP candidates. “It’s being prepared to not only defend the majority, but grow the majority.”

During a closed-door leadership candidate forum on Monday, Virginia Rep. Bob Good, a McCarthy critic, complained that a Super PAC aligned with McCarthy opposed some pro-Trump candidates, and criticized McCarthy for not calling to congratulate him when he won his primary, according to a source in the room. McCarthy replied that he directed $2 million to Good for his race. Good had to be gaveled down in order to cut him off from speaking so they could move to the next question, the source said.

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. McCarthy’s spokesman said that the GOP leader was not involved if these discussions took place and that they are not part of the speakership bid.

Still, McCarthy and Scalise appear to be in command of their leadership races, while the No. 3 House GOP position remains up for grabs, which would be the role of House majority whip, if Republicans win control of the chamber.

A source in the room said that a congressman was pressed on his support for codifying same-sex marriage at the private forum. His response: “These divisive social issues shouldn’t be brought to the House floor.”

With the increasing likelihood that the speaker’s race could go to multiple ballots – something that hasn’t happened since 1923 – McCarthy’s allies and foes alike are starting to quietly game out the next steps if he can’t get the necessary 218 votes on the first round and they move into uncharted territory.

“Teams win. The chairman of the centrist-leaning Main Street Caucus told CNN that fractured teams lose and that McCarthy had their support. “We can’t let a handful hold the conference hostage.”

“If at some point, if Kevin did take his name out, then you would have 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.

I won’t get into speculation, that’s what I’m saying. “Obviously, our focus is on getting it resolved by January 3. And there’s a lot of conversations that everybody has been having, Kevin, surely, with the members who have expressed concerns.”

Jim Jordan, who was set to chair the Judiciary Committee, did not want to jump into the speakership race even though he was urged to by several hardliners.

“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 that 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.

In addition to booting the McCarthy holdouts off committee assignments, various members are considering several other ways to potentially de-fang the threat from their right-wing colleagues. The longshot idea of teaming up with Democrats to get a speaker if the race goes, as well as reinstating an arcane tool that would allow any member to bring up a floor vote to oust a speaker at any time, are all elements of whether to oppose a rules package.

But one member told CNN they also conveyed concern to McCarthy about restoring the motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. It was used over former Speaker John Boehner’s head frequently, and most Republicans think that it would hurt their ability to govern.

“I think that’s one of the reasons that we didn’t see a red wave … the idea that people are sick and tired of the noise, and they’re sick and tired of the fighting,” Rep. David Joyce, an Ohio Republican, said of the impact of a January 3 floor fight. “And I know I get that wherever I go in my district is, ‘why can’t you guys just get things done?’”

As McCarthy scrambles to lock down speaker’s votes, he also delayed the GOP’s internal elections for committee chairmanships. There was some speculation that one of the members competing for a gavel, Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida, may retire early if he doesn’t win, which would make McCarthy’s math problem even tougher. Buchanan disagreed with the notion.

Some Democrats told CNN they would entertain the idea, while others said they had been approached by some of their GOP colleagues.

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.”

There are no behind-the-scenes conversations happening between Democrats and Republicans about putting up an alternative candidate according to New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. If McCarthy wasn’t able to get enough votes, his caucus would be able to help pick the next speaker.

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

Some people have said that they think a consensus pick would be retiring House members who voted to impeach Donald Trump and co-chairs of the Problem Solvers Caucus.

But that would require agreement from every single Democrat and the help of five Republicans – no easy feat. Upton said he has no plans to be in Washington that day, telling CNN: “I’ll be skiing.”

Republican Bruce Westerman said that it has happened before in Arkansas, where minority Democrats in the legislature joined with a few Republicans to choose a GOP speaker of their choice. Westerman made his case at a closed-door meeting.

The State of the House Republican Caucus and Its Implication on the Future of the United States and the Politics of the 21st Century

Westerman said he was concerned about getting here on January 3 and being unable to form a congress, organize committees and push policy objectives.

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

There is still an internal battle going on between the House Republican Caucus and the speaker over a rule that would allow a vote to oust the speaker at any time.

There is a reason the motion to leave already got debated. You can’t govern with a gun to your head and that is what they are asking for. It makes us highly unstable, and it lays out the potential too for Democrats to take advantage of this and create absolute chaos,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican, told CNN. “There is a reason people are against it. You can scream the word accountability all you want … in the end it’s just a path to chaos, not stability, and we are going to have to be very united and very stable if we are going to govern properly. “

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

The Republicans are vetting Miss America, and we’re going to get there soon, I know we’ve been screened, but what we haven’t

The candidates for Miss America have been screened more than the speaker. “We’re vetting it. The process is going through it. It’s a healthy process.”

GOP Whip Steve Scalise told reporters Tuesday, “There are continuing negotiations going on.” For now, the leadership is keeping their options open.

McCarthy said Tuesday that they have been making a lot of progress with members who insist on changing the chair for their support, and that they continue to work through the conference the rules. We will all find a place to get together on this.

Some in the GOP conference are downplaying the impact of the fight, saying that some colleagues are holding onto their demand for the motion to vacate.

I believe we are going to get there. I think we’re going to get to January 3, and Kevin’s going to be elected speaker. We’re going to hit the ground running. What do we got, three weeks? And I think progress is being made,” Jordan said.

Asked for her position on the motion to vacate, Mace said she doesn’t have an opinion at this time but added: “If we can get the conference together and unify that is our biggest strength… We have to work together.

Williams urged his colleagues to unite and warned of challenges ahead for the Republicans. “This is a time we need to take leadership, get our leader elected and get on about our agenda,” he said.

Mr. McCarthy has not shared his plan with anyone from his leadership team in order to keep them from learning about his plans for the speakership race. Instead, he has been seen around the Capitol with his close friend 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 wasn’t sure who he would support for speaker. Mr. Crane didn’t respond to questions about it.

When Nancy Pelosi fell a dozen votes short of getting the speaker’s gavel, she used deals with defectors to get the votes she needed. Ms. Pelosi won 7 votes by agreeing to limit her time in office and 8 by promising to implement rules aimed at fostering bipartisan legislating, and she also won over her lone opponent by creating a subcommittee chairmanship.

The California Republican made a series of pledges 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 Ms. Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments for making a series of violent and conspiratorial social media posts before she was elected, a plum spot on the Oversight Committee.

He promised to hold public hearings about the security failures that led to the attack on the Capitol. He has been meeting with the ultraconservative lawmakers. And on Monday night, he publicly encouraged his members to vote against the lame-duck spending bill to fund the government.

The political role of Kevin McCarthy in the fight against the terror of the Capitol insurrection (and her comments on Greene’s anger at the Capitol)

The fragile governing mandate for the party that takes over the House in January would be a consequence of the disappointing performance of the Republicans. The ideological battle being waged inside the party would have made the majority more volatile.

After she broke with some radical GOP members, 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 freedom to say what she deems offensive and insurrectionist without fear of being reprimanded by her party’s leader. And it also shows that while Trump’s power may be waning elsewhere after a lackluster launch of his 2024 campaign, his influence over his followers in the House, like Greene, remains strong.

The steps McCarthy is taking to try to secure the speakership – and the future complications that may entail – were evident on Tuesday when he gave Greene, the Georgia Republican, a pass for her latest effort to mock the trauma of the Capitol insurrection. If she had been in charge on January 6, 2021, the riots would have succeeded and the mob would have been armed, she said over the weekend. She later insisted she was being sarcastic after the White House complained her comments were a “slap in the face” to law enforcement and against fundamental US values.

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.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/politics/kevin-mccarthy-speakership-battle-analysis/index.html

On the Story of the Midterms: The Case for Breaking the Pedagogy of the Reply to the Ex-President’s Decline

McCarthy responded by saying, “Oh, I believe she said she was being facetious.” His attitude was consistent with his attempts to rewrite the history of the worst attack on US democracy in modern times, where he briefly said that 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. The leader of the House Republicans made a false claim at the White House about how many times Trump had condemned Fuentes before he had done so.

CNN’s Raju and Melanie Zanona reported Tuesday that McCarthy had signaled at the White House meeting that he’d be open to a large bill. McCarthy told his members that he was against such a measure, despite the fact that McConnell worked on it Tuesday.

The split raises the possibility that it will become more politically difficult for some Republican senators 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. The midterm cycle in which many extremists candidates did not win is one part of what is fueling the divide.

Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, said that people need to recognize that we 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.”

GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of the handful of Republican lawmakers to come out in firm opposition to McCarthy as speaker, also acknowledged the reality of a narrowly divided House.

He told CNN he was in a community of common fate. The ship isn’t going anywhere unless five people get in a row in that direction. It is true on impeachment, on the speakership vote, on the budget, and on policy choices.

Some of the questions remain unanswered, including what other deals are going to be cut and what guarantees are going to be made. Womack asked. We need to be careful not to give a lot of that leverage away.

Burchett, Moore, the Mountain Dew and the Gonihed: Getting the word out about the House Freedom Caucus

“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. Burchett rode the skateboard of Gaetz’s wife as he was near the Mountain Dew fountain and barbecue plate.

Rep. Blake Moore, a Utah Republican who identifies himself as part of the governing wing, said at the end of the day, the various factions actually agree on most things and dismissed the idea it would be tense next year.

“I’ve said this over and over again: there is not this, like, enormous amount of drama,” Moore told CNN. “I’ve met with House Freedom Caucus members to chat on what we agree on. And it’s an enormous amount.”

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy said Friday that five conservative hardliners have not budged in their opposition to his speaker’s bid, offering dire warnings that their hard-fought Republican majority could be derailed if they don’t bend.

McCarthy’s dire warning comes as the five GOP members – Gaetz, Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Bob Good of Virginia and Matt Rosendale of Montana – have warned they may vote as a bloc on January 3, meaning they’ll all vote the same way.

McCarthy said that there’s only so much time to govern in a presidential year. “And you want to hit the ground running. Every day you lose, if you lose a quarter, you don’t start strong. You do not get new, stronger candidates. The candidates don’t get the resources they need to get the message out.

“This is a lot of unfinished business this year that they would have to take care of next year and I know from having been over there, that wouldn’t be easy, especially when you’ have a narrow majority.”

“We’re enduring the silly season of a campaign. For most of us, that’s over after you get elected. The silliness is still visible because he is trying to be speaker of the House.

And some of McCarthy’s fiercest critics, including Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Ralph Norman of South Carolina, told CNN they see the five-person threshold as still too high, underscoring the significant challenge McCarthy faces as he works to lock down the speakership.

A five person threshold may be too low for the moderate wing of the party, who have suggested they are willing to agree on a 50 person threshold.

The Role of Rule Concessions in Democrats’ Debate on the House Appropriate Resolution to the House Speaker’s Proclamation

All of this will be a subject of discussion during the conference call with the various ideological caucus in the House GOP on Friday afternoon just four days before the speaker’s vote.

A compromise on the motion to vacate – which McCarthy previously said he would not budge on – could be key to unlocking the votes he needs to secure the speakership. McCarthy is very desperate to seal the deal even if it means giving up some of his power.

Norman said that the devil was in the details of threshold and other rule concessions. People will not vote until the details are spelled out in writing and sealed with social media posts.

The speakership was made a priority in the letter by the California Republican, who promised to ensure the representation of ideological groups on committees.

The hardliners who had laid out their demands to McCarthy in a previous letter, put out a new letter saying that some of the concessions he announced were insufficient and making clear they were still not sold on him.

The members wrote in the letter obtained by CNN that there are no means to measure whether certain promises are kept or broken.

Moderates were angry with each other during the call because they feared the motion would be used to argue over McCarthy’s head.

The Florida Democrat then asked the California Republican to answer the question. McCarthy told them that they needed to close the deal within a couple days, sources said.

When Speaker Nancy Pelosi changed the rules, she asked Gaetz if he would back McCarthy if he agreed to bring the threshold down to a single lawmaker. McCarthy refused to listen to that idea but he would consider it if he was making that offer now.

The package released late Sunday includes giving five Republicans the power to call for a vote on deposing the sitting speaker; restoring the ability to zero out a government official’s salary; giving lawmakers 72 hours to a read bill before it comes to the floor; and creating a new select commit to investigative the “weaponization” of the Justice Department and the FBI.

The rule package does not change the way discharge petitions can be filed, which allows a bill to be brought to the floor if it has the support of 218 lawmakers.

Other notable items that might be of interest: The rules package prohibits remote hearings and markups, does away with staffer unionization efforts and allows the House Ethics Committee to take ethic complaints from the public.