Kevin McCarthy's 'toughest' days as House speaker may lie ahead: report

13 April 2023

Rep. Kevin McCarthy's months as House speaker got off to a famously difficult start when, in early January, he was initially rejected by far-right MAGA Republicans in one vote after another. The California Republican was hoping for a smooth and quick confirmation on Tuesday, January 3, but after 14 votes, McCarthy still hadn't closed the deal. And it wasn't until the 15th vote on Saturday, January 7 that McCarthy finally had enough votes to be confirmed as House speaker.

McCarthy is quite conservative, but as the "Never Kevin" Republicans who kept voting against him saw it, he wasn't conservative enough. And those Republicans are still serving in the U.S. House of Representatives.

To House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) and other Democrats, the antics of the "Never Kevin" crowd back in January showed how extreme and irrational parts of the GOP have become. Democrats knew that McCarthy wouldn't have an easy time as House speaker. But in an article published by The Hill on April 13, reporters Emily Brooks and Mike Lillis, stress that McCarthy's most challenging days as House speaker may lie ahead.

"As McCarthy reaches the 100-day mark of the new Congress," Brooks and Lillis explain, "he's facing down the toughest tests of his rollercoaster tenure, as Republicans brace for soul-defining battles with (President Joe) Biden and Democrats over raising the debt ceiling and funding the government — two crucial debates where failure brings the potential to crash an already fragile economy. Republicans are generally united behind McCarthy's attempts to force Biden to negotiate spending cuts as a condition for raising the debt ceiling — a stipulation the president has so far refused. But their position has been blunted by internal disputes over policy priorities, behind-the-scenes tensions between McCarthy and other top Republicans and the GOP's simple failure to coalesce around a long-term budget blueprint to counter Biden's proposal heading into the talks."

Some House Democrats fear that chaos within McCarthy's caucus could make it difficult to get a budget passed. One of them is Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon).

Blumenauer told The Hill, "It's a self-constructed problem. They're unwilling to identify areas of the budget that they will cut, no areas of revenue that they will raise, and the extreme elements want to do things that even Republicans don't agree with."

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) believes that fellow Republicans will make life difficult for McCarthy in the weeks ahead.

Schakowsky told The Hill, "There are (Republican) members who — whether explicitly or implicitly — make it clear that they are not going to go along with an agenda that they don't like. So this is a really, really difficult spot. We'll see if he can make it through."

Read The Hill's full report at this link.

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