Most congressional historians consider Kevin McCarthy the weakest speaker since Howell Cobb (D-GA). Cobb was elected speaker (after 63 ballots) in 1849 and served until 1853 when he quit to serve as governor of Georgia. In 1857 James Buchanan— considered the second worst U.S. president after Trump— appointed Cobb, one of the most virulent supporters of slavery in Congress, Secretary of the Treasury, where he served until he became one of the original founders of the Confederacy in 1860. Eventually, he became an officer in the Confederate army. On his famous march of liberation, Sherman burned Cobb's plantation to the ground. After being pardoned in 1868 Cobb became one of the most vocal opponents of Reconstruction before dying on a heart attack that year. Pelosi had his official portrait removed from public display in 2020.
The most extreme MAGAts in Congress— from Matt Gaetz and Andy Biggs to the feuding QAnon nuts Marjorie Traitor Greene and Lauren Boebert— carry Trump’s water on all things, including, of course, the Russian war against Ukraine. MAGAts are pro-Trump and anti-Ukraine. At least half the Republicans in Congress feel very strongly that Trump and his wary carriers are wrong on this and they are in synch with the majority of Americans that Ukraine must be supported. They’re fighting it out in the House now, where McCarthy, always the captive of the far right, Putinist fringe, is too weak to stop the members of his own party who want to cut or even eliminate support for Ukraine (so that Trump can get a hotel deal in Moscow or whatever he’s aiming for). Jon Huntsman, Trump’s own ambassador to Russia, laughed at Trump’s assertions that he could end the war in 24 hours and called it “nonsense.”
Yesterday, Reuters reported that “Solid majorities of Americans support providing weaponry to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia and believe that such aid demonstrates to China and other U.S. rivals a will to protect U.S. interests and allies, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey.” By a solid majorly, they mean 65% up from 46% a month ago. And that includes 56% of Republicans. So Trump and his MAGAts are on the wrong side of American opinion once again. “[T]the survey said large majorities of Americans— 67% and 73%— are more likely to support a candidate in next year's U.S. presidential election who will continue military aid to Ukraine and one who backs the NATO alliance.” Bad news for Trump and his MAGAts.
The Republicans— MAGAts more so, but nearly all congressional Republicans— are, according to an interesting report from NBC News yesterday, in favor of “using the powers of their majority to carry out Donald Trump’s quest for retribution against his political adversaries, bolstering the indicted former president’s 2024 campaign message that he is the victim of a wide-ranging conspiracy by ‘villains’ who must be brought down.” You may recall the Adam Schiff drama that played out a few weeks ago in two acts. MAGAt sociopath Anna Paulina Luna introduced a resolution to censure Schiff on less than flimsy grounds, circumventing any kind of investigation. It failed because 20 Republicans just said no.
There are few congressional Democrats who have been more effective at holding Trump to account than Schiff, so it should come as no surprise that Trump reacted with fury when Luna’s resolution failed. Trump struck out against the 20 Republicans who “betrayed him” the next day, including several in vulnerable districts who could never win if the MAGAt vote deserts them, like Lori Chavez-DeRemer (OR), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Tom Kean (NJ), Mike Lawler (NY), Marc Molinaro (NY), David Valadao (CA)…
One week later, after some changes to the resolution, Luna brought up the censure resolution again and it passed 213-209 with 6 cowardly Republicans voting “present.” Every single Republican who Trump called a “RINO piece of garbage” changed their vote to support the censure resolution. Not one stuck to their guns!
Next up for the House Republicans: “expunging” Trump’s two impeachments, led by MAGA asswipes Elise Stefanik (NY) and, of course, Marjorie Traitor Greene (GA). They are also investigating law enforcement entities that charged Trump and even crafted a “weaponization” panel that channels his grievances. Sahil Kapur reported that “Swing-district Republicans are in a bind between the wishes of their pro-Trump GOP base and Trump-skeptical independents. ‘I accept Trump at his word that he will seek retribution,’ said David Jolly, a former Republican congressman who is now a vocal Trump critic. ‘But what we’ve learned is: If he has a Republican Congress, that Congress will probably do what they can to ensure Trump has the executive authority to seek retribution.’… McCarthy has endorsed the expungement effort.” Jolly blamed all this on several factors including “the weak stature of Kevin McCarthy, who is unable to stop any of these impulses, because the political reality is he needs the caucuses of those seeking retribution.”
Rep Eric Swalwell (D-CA) noted that “McCarthy has converted Congress into Washington’s largest law firm, representing just one client, Donald Trump. Their defense of the indicted former president has no limit but comes at the cost of our constituents’ legislative priorities’ being cast aside.” Jolly explains that swing-district Republicans tend to go along because they know they're “not going to beat back this overwhelming impulse of Republicans,” so they pick their battles elsewhere.
Caught in the middle of the Trump-GOP vengeance campaign are politically vulnerable House Republicans— including 18 lawmakers from districts Biden won in 2020. They need strong support from pro-Trump Republican voters at home to win primaries, but they also need support from Trump-skeptical independents to hold their seats in the general election.
In the narrow House majority, their votes are required to pass measures. Sometimes that means giving them off-ramps to sell at home— the resolution that created the special "weaponization" panel, for instance, doesn't name Trump. Other times, it leads to haggling: The Schiff censure resolution was tweaked to eliminate a provision that would have fined him $16 million to win holdouts like Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY), who represents a swing district around the Hudson Valley.
The House Republican efforts align with Trump’s campaign vows of retribution against his perceived political foes if he’s elected in 2024 to return to the White House.
“We will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists. And we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country,” Trump said Sunday in a speech in the swing state of Michigan. “We will rout the fake news media, and we will defeat crooked Joe Biden. We will liberate America from these villains once and for all.”
Yesterday, Politico’s early morning team lead with a report that TrumpWorld is furious at MyKevin for slipping up and admitting on TV that Trump might not be the best general election candidate. They reminded their readers that no one has benefitted more than McCarthy from Trump’s acquiescence to and sponsorship of his ambitions. “In every conceivable way,” they wrote, “the House speaker owes his gavel to Trump.” Once dubbed a RINO by fascists, Trump elevated McCarthy and made him his own puppet and forced the MAGAts to accept him. “He personally intervened in January to ensure McCarthy won his dream job, ultimately convincing his critics to stand down amid a battle for the speakership. And just a few weeks ago, Trump notably kept quiet about the debt ceiling deal McCarthy struck with Biden— a major, and intentional, boost for the speaker that was crucial in ensuring the deal could withstand a conservative pile-on.”
That’s why it came as a shock yesterday when McCarthy dissed Trump in a CNBC interview, openly questioning whether Trump would be Republicans’ best presidential nominee in 2024 after carefully avoiding the topic for months.
“Can he win that election? Yeah, he can win that election,” McCarthy said, referring to a Biden-Trump matchup. “The question is: ‘Is he the strongest to win the election?’ I don’t know that answer.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump world flipped out. We’re told top aides to the former president and allies who know both men quickly traded messages asking, in short: What the fuck? Some called McCarthy a “moron,” we’re told. Others looked to Trump campaign hand BRIAN JACK, who also advises the speaker and has been a critical bridge between both men, to play mediator as Trump hit the trail in New Hampshire.
McCarthy immediately pivoted into clean-up mode. He called Trump to apologize, according to the NYT’s Annie Karni. He offered Trump-loving Breitbart reporter Matt Boyle an exclusive interview, where he walked the comments back and accused the media of taking them out of context.
“Trump is stronger today than he was in 2016,” McCarthy told Boyle.
This morning, we can report that none of these moves have assuaged the fury in Trump’s inner circle. McCarthy, they feel, has taken advantage of the former president when it benefits him and failed to show unflinching loyalty in return. They don’t understand how he could “misspeak”— as McCarthy, we’re told, put it to Trump— on something so critical.
Fundraising off of Trump’s name without permission is a huge no-no for the former president, whose team requires explicit approval for any campaign to use his name and likeness. Trump’s team, we’re told, asked McCarthy’s last night to take down the fundraising pitch.
Now, it’s not the first time McCarthy has been crosswise with Trump. Shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection, McCarthy floated the idea of censuring Trump for his actions and was later caught on tape discussing the idea of asking Trump to resign. Yet the two continued their symbiotic bond: McCarthy quickly assumed a key role in restoring Trump’s prominence in the GOP, and Trump stayed in McCarthy’s corner as he battled for the gavel.
But yesterday’s drama came at a sensitive moment, with a major question already bouncing around Trump world: Why hasn’t McCarthy endorsed Trump?
While it’s unclear if Trump has explicitly asked McCarthy for his support, his silence on the matter has baffled the former president and his close allies.
McCarthy has told some Trump backers that he’s holding off because an endorsement “might hurt” Trump by tying him to the party establishment, according to one GOP campaign consultant who asked not to be named. He’s also suggested that as the highest-ranking Republican in office, just two heartbeats away from the presidency, perhaps he should stay neutral.
But Trump’s allies aren’t buying that. The former president, the thinking goes, will never allow McCarthy to stay on the sidelines in a nasty GOP primary and expects his full support, something many of them think he’ll get eventually— and perhaps, now, sooner rather than later.
“At what point is it okay for Kevin McCarthy not to endorse Trump?” the consultant above asked. “Donald Trump has been very good to Kevin McCarthy.”
Yesterday’s brouhaha also raised questions about how long Trump should— or would— support McCarthy.
Many of the ex-president’s strongest allies in Congress have been stacking up their grievances against McCarthy, waiting for the right moment to make a move. Several would be more than happy to force a vote to oust the speaker if Trump wanted— and Trump knows that.
“If Donald Trump wanted… he could have him out as speaker by the end of the week,” the GOP consultant said.
I asked a friend of mine in the House what this is going to mean and if Trump will have his MAGAt buddies kick Trump out of the speaker’s chair. One of the savviest members of Congress: “No, a weak, subservient and dependent McCarthy is exactly what Trump wants. The last thing Trump wants is someone with backbone or an iota of independence… Expect him to placate Trump by making sure those expungement resolutions get to the floor and pass… I bet even the Republicans who voted to impeach [Trump] will vote to expunge... [W]hat many of us are most concerned out, though, is that McCarthy will back the extremists' demands to cripple the aid program for Ukraine. He won't stand up to Trump on this.”
