Kevin McCarthy Is at Best a Short-Term Speaker

Playbook: “There’s a consensus among many House Republicans, one that few would dare utter publicly, that if McCarthy starts the 118th Congress as speaker, he’s not likely to end it that way.”

“If he’s able to lock down the 218 votes he needs to be speaker, the thinking goes, he likely will have given away the store to conservatives — including the ‘Never Kevin’ crowd’s demand to make it easier to call a vote to oust the speaker. Many Republicans are already predicting the Freedom Caucus will use that tool, known as the ‘motion to vacate,’ against McCarthy as soon as he strays from a conservative hard line.”

“The question on everyone’s mind is: When? The year-end spending deal struck between Democrats and Senate Republicans clearly bought McCarthy time. Instead of having to negotiate a politically precarious funding agreement with Democrats in his first months as speaker, McCarthy won’t have to go there until September at the earliest.”

“But even McCarthy allies tell us the real looming threat is the debt ceiling deadline. At some point next year — likely in the third quarter, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center — McCarthy will have to figure out a way to raise the federal debt limit or risk a national default, a move that will tear the GOP conference in two.”