Far-right lawmakers escalate threats to boot McCarthy from Speakership after debt deal passage
Kevin McCarthy is not out of the woods yet.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) cleared a massive challenge on Wednesday when he managed to deliver just enough votes from the Republican caucus, along with a large cohort of Democrats, to pass the landmark debt ceiling and deficit reduction agreement he brokered with President Joe Biden, which is now expected to move quickly through the Senate and avert a national default after weeks of tense bipartisan negotiations.
But now he faces another potential obstacle, reported The Daily Beast: the far-right wing of the House GOP, who is enraged the deal happened at all — and want McCarthy to suffer for it.
"Instead of exiting debt ceiling negotiations with President Joe Biden hoisting a triumphant deal, McCarthy came out with something lukewarm. A narrow addition of work requirements for food stamp recipients between the ages of 50 and 54. Ending the pause on federal student loan payments. A suspension of the debt limit until 2025. Minimal spending caps for two years that would only technically cut spending if you consider the increases relative to inflation," reported Ursula Perano and Sam Brodey. "The deal passed Wednesday night 314-117, with 149 Republicans and 165 Democrats voting for it, and 71 Republicans and 46 Democrats voting no. Republicans control the House, but it was Democrats who primarily got the measure across the finish line."
As a result of this, some far-right lawmakers are ramping up threats to use a parliamentary procedure to force a confidence vote to eject McCarthy from the Speakership — something he was, ironically, forced to put in the rules in order to get the votes necessary to become Speaker in the first place.
Some lawmakers, like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), had been making threats of this sort even before the vote happened — but for now, said the report, few in the caucus have treated this as a serious possibility. Another is Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC), who said, “He’s blown Republican unity to smithereens. So, you can put that in terms of trust, if you want to. It’s just something that is functionally destroyed.”
"The good news for McCarthy is that it would take more than just one Republican to remove him from his position. The bad news is that it wouldn’t take much more than a half-dozen — if Democrats want to cooperate with the coup," said the report. "The slim GOP majority in the House means that McCarthy has very little wiggle room. And even if 95 percent of his conference is behind him, that last five percent could sink him."
Agence France-PresseGame, Set and Almost Match to Joe BidenEdward Luce: “Shakespeare foretold the tale of America’s latest debt-ceiling crisis — full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The final deal, which will probably be passed this weekend, could also have been scripted by Joe Biden. Rarely in the history of fiscal brinkmanship has so much noise been made by so many Republicans with so little to show for it. The result is a win for Biden that prudence stops him from celebrating.”
“This charade’s key lesson is that people who call themselves ‘fiscal conservatives’ are guilty of fraudulent branding — aided by a process-obsessed media. The definition of fiscal conservatism is matching public spending with revenues over the business cycle. Threatening a catastrophic default unless the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service is defunded is its very opposite. That would be fiscal incontinence.”
“The fact that this was one of the key Republican demands gave the game away."
https://politicalwire.com/2023/05/31/game-set-and-almost-match-to-joe-biden/Ron DeSantis touts permit-free concealed carry law just after mass shooting in Florida
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday sent out a fundraising request in which his campaign highlighted a rule that "allows Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a government-issued permission slip" — just two days after a mass shooting near a beach in Florida.
Ron DeSantis for President sent the email, which touted the policy positions and state-level accomplishments of DeSantis. The email subject line was "My email is less than 400 words," yet the contents of the email contained more than 2,000 words.
Among the accomplishments listed in the fundraising email was that DeSantis has purportedly defended "Second Amendment rights."
He "[e]nacted constitutional carry that allows Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a government-issued permission slip," according to the email.
The email was sent Wednesday, which was two days after a Memorial Day shooting which resulted in nine injuries
Agence France-Presse
