Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces a political standoff when the House resumes this week. McCarthy needs to steer the House to fund the government and avoid a government shutdown.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is a man who stays in motion — enthusiastically greeting tourists at the Capitol, dashing overseas last week to the G7 summit of industrial world leaders, raising funds back home to elect fellow Republicans to the House majority.
But beneath the whirlwind of activity is a stubborn standstill, an imbalance of power between the far-right Republicans who hoisted McCarthy to the speaker’s role yet threaten his own ability to lead the House.
It’s a political standoff that will be tested anew as the House returns this week from a long summer recess and McCarthy faces a collision course of difficult challenges — seeking to avoid a government shutdown, support Ukraine in the war and launch an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
“They’ve got some really heavy lifting ahead,” said the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, John Thune, of South Dakota.
There are a lot of things I'm sick of from the American right, but these little fucking games that they play with government shutdowns and potential US credit defaults every single year are particularly getting old.
They just don't want Trump to be the only one impeached. They want it to mean nothing, so they're probably going to try impeaching every Democratic President forever now.
I still think that they really wanted to impeach Biden three times. This would "prove" that Biden is more corrupt than Trump. Ignore that none of the Biden impeachments would have been about any actual crime beyond "we don't like that he's President - we wanted the other guy!"
Of course, with McCarthy's razor thin margins, he couldn't manage this, but he's feeling increased pressure to get one impeachment in. This way the Republicans can say "well, yes, it was political but this just proves that the two Trump impeachments were political also so the Democrats are worse!" (Again, ignoring that Trump actually committed crimes and Biden didn't.)
Oh poor Kevin McCarthy, if only his caucus wasn't filled with idiots, and if only he could ignore stupid political theater to focus on governance (cough impeachment cough)
Even a competent Speaker not conspiring in an insurrection would be mostly doomed with a five seat majority and the clown caucus he heads. Yes Nancy made it look easy, but she was Speaker for the grown up American party. There's a reason Boehner took off running.
Also, McConnell is in the Senate. To win a Senate seat, you need to appeal to your entire state. This has a moderating effect on politicians. You can't win in most states by saying "Trump really won in 2020. We should hang all Democrats and seize the Jewish Space Laser!"
Meanwhile, in the House, you just need to win a small section of the state. This section is likely heavily gerrymandered so that you're safe no matter what. In some of these areas, "Impeach Biden on the first day for the crime of pushing Trump out of office" actually works and can get those people into the House.
McCarthy needs to juggle these crazies along with more rational Republicans (that being a relative term). He could work across the aisle - teaming Democrats up with more moderate Republicans to get things done, but he doesn't want to do this. Instead, he wants to only have Republicans involved which means he needs the votes of the crazies. This gives them more power than they should have.
But beneath the whirlwind of activity is a stubborn standstill, an imbalance of power between the far-right Republicans who hoisted McCarthy to the speaker’s role yet threaten his own ability to lead the House.
It’s a political standoff that will be tested anew as the House returns this week from a long summer recess and McCarthy faces a collision course of difficult challenges — seeking to avoid a government shutdown, support Ukraine in the war and launch an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
White House spokesman Ian Sams said, “Speaker McCarthy shouldn’t cave to the extreme, far-right members who are threatening to shut down the government unless they get a baseless, evidence-free impeachment of President Biden.
Meanwhile, what should have been a fairly prescribed process to fund the government after McCarthy and Biden negotiated a more than $1 trillion deal earlier this summer over the debt limit appears to be falling apart.
Trump faces his own more serious charges of wrongdoing, including the federal indictments over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election he lost to Biden and his refusal to return classified documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Watching from the Senate, which has been working to pass all 12 of the regular bills needed to fund government operations through committees ahead of floor votes starting next week, Republicans hope cooler heads in the House will prevail on all fronts.
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