The deal to pull the United States
back from a debt
cliff meets
its first big roadblock today at 3 p.m..
The House Rules Committee convenes.
It is TBD.
Whether the unhappy conservatives
on that panel
will have enough votes
to try to kill the Biden
McCarthy debt pact
at its first legislative stop.
Hardliners say the deal
that gave Speaker McCarthy
the gavel back in January
included a promise
that any legislation needed all nine
Republican Rules
Committee votes
to make it to the full House.
McCarthy allies say
they don't remember it that way.
This Washington
wrinkle puts the must pass deal
in some considerable early peril.
The hardliners say
the compromise doesn't
cut enough spending.
But listen to Speaker
McCarthy this morning.
He says he got the better
of the president and the Republicans
should vote yes.
We're actually going to
spend less money
this year than we spent last year.
Read The Wall Street Journal
They say it's a very good bill.
This is the biggest
cut in American history that we vote for.
I'm not quite sure
what else they want to go.
I think we've got to look at where
the victories are.
We don't spend another 4 trillion.
We we allow them to keep going forward
till January.
Let's get straight up to Capitol Hill.
CNN's Melanie Sloan is live for us there.
Melanie,
the speaker says Republicans
should vote for it,
but he's got some trouble on his hands.
Yeah, that's right.
There is a lot of outrage
on the right here over this deal.
They feel like
he essentially gave up
too much in these negotiations.
And the House Freedom Caucus
is actually holding a press conference
right now to rally opposition
against this bill.
But, John,
the two big questions right now are,
do they have the votes to be able
to block this
from even coming to the floor
or passing on the floor?
And is Kevin McCarthy's speakership safe
now on the first question?
It does not appear that they do
have the power to block this.
The bill does
have to go through the House
Rules Committee later today
before it can get a floor vote.
And there are three hard
line conservatives on that panel.
That was part of the deal
that Kevin McCarthy made
to become speaker.
But two of them, Ralph
Norman and Chip Roy, are signaling
they will vote against the rule.
But one of them,
Thomas Massie, we are learning,
is expected to support the rule,
which means it will be able to advance
and get on to the floor.
But on that second question, John,
whether Kevin McCarthy
speakership is safe.
That is a lot less clear.
The House
Freedom Caucus did have a call last night
where they talked
about their strategy moving forward
and how they're going to approach this.
And while a lot of them
are against the idea
of using a tool known
as the motion to vacate
which would essentially force
a floor vote on ousting Kevin McCarthy,
it only takes one member to be able
to force that vote.
And Congressman
Chip Roy is especially angry.
He told Glenn
Beck in an interview
on the radio moments ago
that this deal is a betrayal of the power
sharing agreement
that we put in place
among House Republicans.
And he also said,
if we can't kill this bill,
then we're going to have to regroup
and figure out the whole leadership
arrangement again.
So a clearest
path clear, clear threat there, John,
and potentially his speakership at risk.
Well, stand by, because, Chip Roy,
you just mentioned speaking right now.
Let's listen.
Do we actually run on
actually trying to change this place,
actually trying to secure the border,
actually saying
that we're going
to raise the debt ceiling,
maybe you should actually enact
fiscal reforms to do so.
We did that.
We worked in good faith.
Everybody sitting around
working around the table
to accomplish the objectives
the American people sent here to do.
Unfortunately,
last week, there was a breach.
There was a breach in the structure
that we agreed
to put in place
to make sure that we are representing
the American people through this
heretofore united Republican conference.
The Republican conference right now
has been torn asunder.
And we are working
hard to try to put it back together again
this weekend
by making sure that this bill
gets stopped.
I want to be very clear,
not one Republican
should vote for this deal, not one.
If you're out there watching this,
every one of my colleagues
will be very clear.
Not one Repub can should vote
for this deal.
It is a bad deal.
No one sent us here
to borrow an additional $4 trillion
to get absolutely nothing in return.
But at best,
if I'm being really generous,
a spending freeze for a couple of years.
That's it.
That's about what you get.
And frankly,
you're going to make things worse.
And my Democratic colleagues know it.
That's why they're supporting it.
That's why they're going around gleeful.
There's a reason
our Democratic colleagues support this.
There's a reason that
Mitt Romney supports this.
There's a reason that Bill
Kristol supports this.
It's all the same stuff.
There's a reason that
our conservative
allies are opposing it roundly.
The Club for Growth scoring against it,
the Heritage Foundation
scoring against it, FreedomWorks
scoring against it.
Ron DeSantis publicly opposed.
President Trump said
he thought we should default
rather than pursue this kind of lunacy.
At the end of the day,
the only person that would default in
this town is Joe Biden unless Republicans
default on the American dream
by voting for this bad bill.
That is why you're listening to that
Congressman Chip Roy of Texas.
You see members of the Freedom
Caucus, the House Freedom
Caucus surrounding him.
Kevin McCarthy had to negotiate with them
to become speaker.
And now Chip Roy right there
threatening that
if this debt deal the speaker
cut with the Biden White House,
if it is passed, he's
threatening to revisit
the speaker's
hold on the gavel with me
in studio to share the reporting
and their insights CNN's Dana
Bash, CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson
and Simon Kim of the Associated Press.
So there you have it right there.
Number one,
McCarthy appears
to have the votes at the moment
to get it out of the Rules Committee.
The question
is, as he sits in the speaker's office.
What calculation
is going through his mind?
Does he also thinking
can survive a challenge to his leadership
or does he have to yet again
accommodate the right
and stop his own deal?
That would be
really remarkable
because this is the most delicate
of balancing acts
that both leaders in both parties
have to do.
The president is doing the same thing.
It's just that
maybe they haven't been as vocal
this morning
as they have been in the past
with his the left flank.
And what we're talking about here is
a true compromise in the sense that
there are
if all goes as planned
from the perspective of the White House
and the House speaker,
there will be no votes
on the left
and there will be no votes on the right.
And they're going to need
the majorities to be gotten
basically in the middle by Democrats
and Republicans.
The chip arrives at the world
are serious.
Obviously, you just heard him say that.
I spoke to a senior
Republican House member this morning
who said that the feeling among the House
leadership is that there are not enough
people who want to quote unquote,
emasculate their leaders,
both the president and the speaker,
in order to take this down.
We'll see if that holds. Right.
So a traditional Washington
deal, the left and the right are mad.
You have enough votes in the middle,
you pass it,
everybody grumbles and you move on.
What makes this more interesting is
just because
Speaker McCarthy, House
Republicans, adopted the rule one.
One person, a chip.
Roy, sounds like it's going to be him.
Yeah, he can change his mind,
but he comes to the floor,
let's say they pass this
and he comes to the floor
at the end of the week,
says, I want to vacate the chair.
Is Kevin McCarthy like John Boehner,
like Paul Ryan to fill,
you know, essentially
going to lose his job?
Different circumstances,
but because of flak on the right?
Listen, I mean, this was always the fear.
I mean, we all covered all the 15 rounds
and finally made the speakership
and sort of the underlying story was
how tenuous his grasp
on the speakership was.
And with this happening,
you see Chip Roy's very strong words.
He said you know,
the Republican conference
has been torn asunder.
Not one
Republican should vote for this deal,
he said.
So he does
look as he's at least setting himself up
to be somebody
who would try
to get the speaker out of there.
Can he bring others along?
I mean,
he certainly seemed to be having a call
to arms there for other Republicans
to vote no on this deal.
And say,
you know,
there's a reason
why Democrats are happy with this deal.
And so we'll see.
I mean, this was always going to be
a perilous time for Kevin McCarthy.
We see a point out to your point
about call for arms.
It was quite interesting.
Governor DeSantis
did say over the weekend
if he were in the house,
he would propose this deal.
He would vote against it.
Donald Trump hasn't said anything.
He had Chip Roy quoting
what Donald
Trump said in the CNN town hall
before this deal was struck,
that at some point
they're going to default.
I'm not president. I don't care.
That was Trump's flippant.
It was just a flippant attitude.
I'm not president.
I'm going to get blamed.
Go ahead. And default.
But Trump has said nothing
at this tenuous moment.
Donald Trump has a lot of sway
over House Republicans.
If he were to say something,
he could tip the scale either way,
could he not?
He definitely could.
Which is why you hear
Congressman Chip Roy
bringing
all of the outside opposition,
whether it's conservative outside
spending groups whether it's what
the former president said
before the deal was finalized,
whether it's
Florida Governor
Ron DeSantis trying to drum up opposition
against this deal.
And you do see how Speaker
McCarthy at
least has to go on a really aggressive
public relations messaging offensive.
You hear him saying over and over
since this deal was announced
that Democrats got no wins in this deal,
which is quite accurate.
But that is what he and his lieutenants
have to say
to try to convince you
you weren't
probably never going
to get a chip, Roy, on any sort of deal.
I think we're kind of missing that point.
But those people
who are kind of teetering
on the edge of a
yes or no
in the Republican conference,
he really does have to work overdrive
to convince them
that this is the best deal
that you can get with a Democratic Senate
and a Democratic president and.