The House will vote on Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden’s debt-ceiling deal this evening and, by all accounts, the speaker has stuck the landing.
Having reached an agreement with the White House, McCarthy got his way in a crucial Rules Committee meeting yesterday, fought off a Freedom Caucus rebellion and looks set to win support for his deal from a majority of his conference.
To the great disappointment of those banking on a bruising Republican civil war, McCarthy evidently feels secure in his position. Asked about the possibility of disgruntled hardliners filing a motion to vacate today, McCarthy replied: “Look, everybody has the ability to do what they want. But if you think I’m going to wake up in the morning and ever be worried about that, no. Doesn’t bother me. If someone thinks they have the right to do it, call the motion.”
McCarthy has, once again, outperformed the low expectations most of Washington had for his speakership. To be fair to the McCarthy doubters, there were good reasons to be skeptical: his tortuous path to power, razor-thin margins, a bitterly divided party and the concessions made to holdouts in order to secure the speaker’s gavel.
But in an impressive feat of political judo, McCarthy has harnessed what some saw as weaknesses to his advantage: tight numbers have focused minds, the presence of some of his critics in key positions has encouraged broader buy in. In a weak position, McCarthy secured what the Congressional Budget Office estimates will amount to $1.5 trillion in spending cuts — albeit with spending caps that are only enforceable for the first two years. There are a few unexpected baubles too — like a gas pipeline for Joe Manchin.
Progressives are up in arms; the New York Times editorial board complains of “one-sided bargaining” that leaves next to nothing for Democrats to cheer — a rebuttal to the complaints from the right that McCarthy hasn’t extracted enough from Biden.
Along the way, he has made many on both the left and the right look silly. Among them: Joe Biden. The president gambled that the Republicans wouldn’t be able to present anything close to a united front, painting anything short of a blank check “MAGA extremism” and refusing to negotiate for months. Don’t listen to the cheerleaders heralding Biden the dealmaker. Things have not gone according to the White House’s plan.
Those in the media who dutifully toed the administration line look silly too. Last year, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes was telling his viewers that a Republican-controlled House would never negotiate seriously over the debt ceiling and simply use it as a bomb to blow up the economy and undermine Joe Biden’s reelection chances. Those claims, once common on the left, have been memory-holed. Now we are told that the fact that McCarthy managed to compromise with Biden is evidence of the “ideological exhaustion” of the Republican Party. Writing in the New York Times, progressive journalist Ezra Klein almost seemed frustrated that the Republicans hadn’t held out for more: “Threatening default… in order to get a deal like this is like threatening to detonate a bomb beneath the bank unless the teller gives you $150.” Of course, Klein, doesn’t want Republicans to hold out for more, but to surrender the leverage they have.
Some on the right look silly too. Witness, for example, the dust up today between Thomas Massie — the eccentric libertarian and hardline fiscal conservative who backed McCarthy in yesterday’s all-important Rules Committee vote — and Russ Vought, Trump’s former OMB director. Vought went after Massie for siding with McCarthy. Massie pointed out how little Vought and his colleagues did to cut spending when they were in power. “Your path to the dark side is now complete,” tweeted Vought. “You have become your enemy. Have a good day, Thomas.” Vought’s sudden discovery of hardline fiscal responsibility as soon as he is out of power is not unusual — and it isn’t especially persuasive. Most opposition to the deal has been met with a shrug, and seen for the electorally-necessary grandstanding it is.
The debt deal won’t satisfy many. But it is the clearest sign yet of McCarthy’s effectiveness as speaker — and to call it anything other than a big win for the boy from Bakersfield is disingenuous.
On our radar
CHRISTIE SET TO JOIN 2024 RACE Chris Christie will announce he is running for president at a town hall in New Hampshire next week. His candidacy is a curious one: with favorability ratings in the toilet, it’s hard to see how it ends well for the former New Jersey governor.
TRUMP SLAMS MCENANY Donald Trump demands loyalty from his employees but doesn’t offer much in return. Yesterday, the former president turned on his one time spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany calling her ‘milktoast [sic]’.
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Trump is the last of the Cuomosexuals
Last summer, it seemed clear to me, at least, that should Florida governor Ron DeSantis enter the 2024 primary, a major point of contention with former president Donald Trump would be the contrast in their responses to Covid.
Where Trump gave decision-making power over to the cabal of Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx and the burgeoning public health bureaucracy, DeSantis defied their silly authoritarian approaches in his state to open beaches and businesses. The comparison is obvious and for DeSantis quite beneficial. The open question was how Trump would respond.
Well, a week into the DeSantis campaign, now we know: Trump thinks DeSantis sucked on Covid, and so did Florida! Instead of sounding a note of ownership of the state’s successes — that such freedom was only possible under a White House that respected gubernatorial power to make such decisions — Trump has decided DeSantis’s local control was very, very bad, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Has he hired whistleblower lunatic Rebekah Jones yet?
The best part of this approach is Trump’s decision to laud the disgraced Andrew Cuomo’s handling of Covid in New York, which led to immeasurable excess deaths. Ever the antithesis of hip, Trump has become the last of the Cuomosexuals, in thrall to the former governor’s every capable-sounding word and his hand sanitizer that was definitely not a convoluted grift.
The exiled Cuomo hailed the praise from the former president: “Donald Trump tells the truth, finally,” he tweeted. Trump’s campaign later sent out an email blast containing “evidence” of the Florida governor’s “Lying Record on Covid.” The mailer criticizes DeSantis for praising vaccines and, gasp, being pictured wearing a mask… both things for which President Trump’s administration advocated.
Maybe Trump just never got around to having his merch restitched. But the idea that he alone, Democrat or Republican, would be out there defending Andrew Cuomo’s record just goes to show: there is honor among skeeves.
–Ben Domenech
How much does Biden care about gay rights?
Joseph Robinette Biden, a practicing Catholic, has traveled a long way when it comes to gay rights. In 1996, as senator for Delaware, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which blocked the federal recognition of same-sex unions. Two years earlier he voted to cut funding to schools that taught the acceptance of homosexuality. In the 1970s, when asked about homosexuals in the US military, he replied: “My gut reaction is that they are a security risk but I must admit I have not given this much thought… I’ll be darned!”
But it’s 2023 and, I’ll be darned, the now President Joe Biden’s moral outlook has changed dramatically. It just so happens that his values have moved with those of his ever-more progressive political party, the Democrats. The polite thing is to say he’s “evolved.”
Biden’s White House has been arguably the most pro-gay administration in American history. It’s increasingly assertive in telling other countries off for failing to live up to twenty-first-century progressive morality on matters sexual. Take Team Biden’s reaction to a new law in Uganda, which includes the death penalty for perpetrators “aggravated homosexuality” — such as sex with a minor, or having sex while HIV positive, and incest.
The bill criminalizes gay sex education and calls for “rehabilitation” therapy for homosexuals. Joe Biden has called it “a tragic violation” of human rights and suggested “all aspects of US engagement with Uganda” could now be withdrawn. “We are considering additional steps, including the application of sanctions and restriction of entry into the United States against anyone involved in serious human rights abuses or corruption,” he said.
Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni has described the international outcry over his country’s new law as “imperialist.” Most westerners, if they thought about him at all, would consider Museveni a nasty dictator. His views on homosexuality — “a deviation from normal” — sound archaic to our hyper-tolerant minds. But it’s worth considering that the Ugandan government’s position today is merely a harsher version of Joe Biden’s not so long ago. Perhaps he isn’t best placed to lecture Africans about sexual equality from the Oval Office.
What we probably can all agree on is the hypocrisy of an American government in threatening Uganda with sanctions and more over gay rights — at the same time as the White House still treats Saudi Arabia as a vital strategic ally. Homosexuality is a criminal offense in Saudi, punishable by public lashings and the death penalty. But Saudi Arabia is the world’s second-biggest oil producer and so it gets a pass. Uganda has little to offer the global markets in comparison.
–Freddy Gray
From the site
Ioan Grillo: How to stop the flow of guns south
Amber Athey: Can the Heritage Foundation unite the right?
Ben Domenech: What more could the House GOP have got in the debt ceiling deal?
Poll Watch
PRESIDENT BIDEN JOB APPROVAL
Approve 41.6% | Disapprove 56.1% | Net Approval -14.5
(RCP Average)
HYPOTHETICAL WEST VIRGINIA SENATE RACE
Joe Manchin (D) 32% | Jim Justice (R) 54%
(East Carolina U)
Best of the Rest
Janan Ganesh, Financial Times: Why DeSantis is losing to Trump
Tyler Page, Washington Post: Shalanda Young emerges as quietly essential figure in debt deal
William Voegeli, City-Journal: Revisiting Reagan country
William A. Galston, Wall Street Journal: Jake Sullivan and Biden’s ‘foreign policy for the middle class’
Caitlin Oprysko and Hailey Fuchs, Politico: Ramaswamy fires consultants who worked simultaneously for LIV golf
Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon: Russia pulled out of its nuclear transparency pact with the US. The Biden administration still shares sensitive data
